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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 




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Tier 'diiLdien arise up and call lier 

Me SS 8 l . Tr av. XXXI 28 , 



GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES 



BY 



FRANCES B. HURLBUT 






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CAMBRIDGE 

JDrtoatelp Printed at t&e Etoersfte Press 

1889 










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THE LIBRARY 
OF CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 



Copyright, 1889, 
By FRANCES B. HURLBUT. 



All rights reserved. 



To 
AUNT EMILY WARD, 

FOR 

HER EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY, 

March i6th, 1889, 

FROM 

ONE OF THE "LITTLE GIRLS." 



« 



Neither these stories nor any that will ever be written 
can tell all her worth. To the poor, a friend who spared 
neither herself, her time, nor her money. To her brother, 
a guide and counselor. To her sisters' children, a mother. 
To all good children, a precious aunt Emily. 

These stories are written and dedicated to you, dearest 
auntie and best mother, to help make happy your eightieth 
birthday. May our heavenly Father, in his wisdom and 
love, spare you yet longer to love and bless us. 

ONE OF THE CHILDREN. 

February 7, i88g. 



CONTENTS. 

> 

PAGE 

Introduction n 

Early Days 17 

Lost on the Mountains 27 

A Thoughtless Little Girl , . 39 

A Long Sleigh-Ride 43 

My Mother's Death 54 

We go to New Salem 59 

Four Years in New Salem 70 

A Long Ship-Ride 81 

Yankee Point 88 

The Saginaw Indians 97 

To Emily Ward, 1826 (Sonnet) 103 

Going after Strawberries 104 

Reading German Philosophy 11 1 

Saving the Frenchman's Life 116 

The Fall of the Light-House 121 

An Exhortation to Economy 127 

Grandma's Children 130 

Grandma's Children (Concluded) 144 

Uncle Eber tells a Story 156 



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INTRODUCTION. 




HE grandmother of these stories is 
a lady well known in Michigan for 
her active benevolence. "Aunt 
Emily," as she is affectionately called by all 
her old friends, and "grandma," as she is 
called by her adopted children and their 
children, is a sister of the late E. B. Ward, 
the well-known iron manufacturer, lumber- 
man, and steamboat owner. His history 
and the history of the early progress in 
commerce and manufacture of the North- 
west could not be separately written. She 
was a great aid to him in his early busi- 
ness endeavors, in advice, in the opportune 
loan of money when much needed, and in 
superintending the fitting out of his fine 
fleet of steamships, in which she was to 
have had, in pay for her work, from three 
to five thousand dollars in stock, according 
to the size of the boat. 



1 2 INT ROD UCTION. 

Instead of giving it to her outright, he 
thought he could handle it more profitably 
in his own name, but always kept a will 
made, in which her name was down for a 
share in proportion to his increased wealth. 
By his last will she would have received 
half a million, if the estate had been set- 
tled up as her brother expected. But in 
the process of settling, in some way the re- 
siduary part of the estate was lost to the 
heirs, which included aunt Emily and her 
adopted children and all of Captain Ward's 
children by his first wife. Two of these 
latter children are kindly supported by the 
bounty of his second wife, who fortunately 
received some six millions of the estate. 

But it was through aunt Emily's asso- 
ciation with her brother, and his reliance 
upon her judgment of character, that she 
was enabled to assist so many young men, 
who now in their prosperity fondly look up 
to her as the author of their advancement 
in life. She very seldom made a mistake 
about a young man, and if she said to her 
brother, " Eber, I think that young man 
would do well if you had a place for him," 



INTRO D UCTION. \ 3 

Eber was pretty sure to give him a place, 
and the young man was pretty sure to do 
well. 

On the occasion of the celebration of the 
eightieth anniversary of her birthday she 
received many letters from these proteges 
of hers, and the burden of them all was, 
" But for you I never could have been the 
man I am." 

One, after telling what she had done for 
his pecuniary advancement, adds : " But for 
your moral plane and its influence on me I 
should almost be afraid to leave this world ; 
as it is, I am not." 

Another says : " Nothing can obliterate 
the happy memories associated with the 
days when you were among the few most 
valued friends of that earlier life. My life 
has widened since those days, but you are 
among the widening influences that have 
made me more of a man than I could 
have otherwise been." 

Another writes : "If the halo of the many 
acts of love and mercy in which you have 
borne an active part during these four- 
score years could illumine your home dur- 



1 4 INTRO D UCTION. 

ing that celebration, your home will shine 
with a glory that is not of earth." 

Still another says: " I, too, have known 
the uplifting influence of your strength and 
courage and nobility of character." 

These, though but a small part, show in 
what light aunt Emily is regarded by very 
many people. 

Her brother also considered her advice 
valuable in business matters. I once heard 
him say, as he pointed to a large tract of 
land that had swallowed up a good deal of 
money, " That property Emily told me I 'd 
lose money on if I bought it, and I have. 
I 've noticed all my life that the things she 
said would fail did fail, and the ventures 
she said would prosper did prosper. She 
has a fine business head." 

Her life of recent years has been neces- 
sarily more limited in its activities both by 
increasing infirmities and a decreased in- 
come. And since her brother's death there 
have not been the business openings for 
proteges that she used to command ; all 
that path of usefulness being closed to her. 

It is given to but few to have the will and 



INTRO D UCTION. \ 5 

the capacity and the opportunity combined 
for such a life-work as hers. I do not over- 
step the bounds of truth when I say that 
she never turned away from what she con- 
sidered her duty, no matter how disagree- 
able to herself or how hard the work it 
involved. 

I have tried in these stories to give some 
idea of the good and faithful life she has 
lived ; and if they accomplish that object 
and are an acceptable memorial of her for 
her children and grandchildren and other 
dear ones whom she has loved and fostered, 
the author will feel that her work is not 
in vain. 




GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 



EARLY DAYS. 




H, grandma, do tell us a story!" 
and golden-haired Emily turns 
around in her grandma's lap, and 
puts her arms around her neck and kisses 
her sweetly. 

" Oh, yes, do," and little Portie runs up 
and tries to climb on that same lap, and 
grandma reaches down one hand to help 
him climb, and as he struggles in his small- 
boy fashion to reach the coveted spot, he 
knocks his head on her nose, and off go 
her gold -bowed spectacles on the floor; 
whereat Gyp sets up a furious barking, and 
makes wild attempts to get up on grand- 
mas lap too ; and the other little Emily 
hangs on to grandma's chair and laughs, 
and wants a seat in the same place; and 



1 8 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

the aunties and mammas look on, with smil- 
ing faces, to see the fun. 

After a time quiet is restored, the spec- 
tacles are back on grandma's nose, the 
children are arranged satisfactorily in and 
about the lap, and the aunties and mam- 
mas are busy sewing, or idle, as it pleases 
them ; and Gyp has sulkily retired and lain 
himself down where he can keep one jeal- 
ous eye on the children, and the other 
eye on a stray fly or two that slyly tickle 
his nose for him. 

And grandma draws a long breath and 
says, " What shall I tell you ? I 've told 
you all the stories I know." 

" Oh, tell us about when you were a little 
girl," the children shout in unison ; and 
aunt Frank says, " Tell us about the New 
England days, where you were born and 
lived until you were nine years old." 

" Oh, do," beseech three eager little 
voices; and grandma sighs somewhat, for 
she has told that story not less than three 
hundred times, she thinks. But, neverthe- 
less, she launches off bravely, and after a 
time, seeing the joy on the small faces, gets 



EARLY DAYS. 19 

interested herself. For grandma everybody 
knows is happiest when she is making 
others happy. In the first place, she was 
born with that disposition; and in the 
second place, she has cultivated it to that 
degree that she does n't know herself that 
that is what makes her happy. 

" But I was n't born in New England," she 
says, " though my father and mother were, 
and were married in Vermont in 1807." 

Grandma does love dates, so every once 
in a while she tucks in one, and as I like 
them myself I follow her example. You 
see a date just settles many things. If you 
know the date of an incident, you know half 
there is to be known about it without any 
telling. For instance, you know how they 
were dressed; what kind of bonnets they 
wore, whether of the coal-scuttle kind or 
the saucer shape; whether their dresses 
were short and narrow, or long and wide. 
Then you always know whether it is knee- 
breeches and pig tails for gentlemen, or 
long pantaloons and short cropped hair, — 
always a man's clothes are in the extreme : 
if his trousers are just below his knees, then 



20 GRANDMOTHER' S STORIES. 

his hair hangs down on his shoulders ; and 
if his trousers are long enough to be re- 
spectable, then his hair is cropped so short 
that it gives him a kind of naked appear- 
ance that makes you uncomfortable to look 
at him. Then, too, you know who was 
President ; whether it was before railroads 
and steamboats and telegrams and tele- 
phones and all the new things, or after it. 
Now every one of you most grown-up chil- 
dren know all about 1807 °f course. But 
here grandma is waiting, looking up over 
her spectacles as much as to say, " What are 
you talking so long and so prosily about ? " 
so I subside, and grandma resumes. 

"No, I wasn't born in New England; 
your great grandfather was a rover, and 
though I was the oldest of four children, and 
the youngest was born before I was quite 
four years old, no two of them were born in 
the same place, though two of us were born 
in the same State. And when you consider 
that there were no railroads at that time, 
you may know he was a rover indeed." 

" I should think so," said golden-haired 
Emily ; and as the other two children 
thought the same, grandma proceeded. 



EARLY DAYS. 2 1 

" But when I was most four, just before 
Abba, the youngest child, was born, my 
father moved back to Vermont, where we 
stayed five years." 

" Yes," says little Emily, " but you did n't 
tell us where the others were born." 

" Well," says grandma, " I was born in 
Selina, New York ; Sallie was born in Man- 
lius, New York ; and Eber was born in Can- 
ada. How well I remember crossing the 
St. Lawrence River one stormy day late in 
the fall of 1811, although I was but a little 
bit of a girl. We were in a large sail-boat, 
and father and the man who owned the 
boat managed it. It was a dark, cloudy 
day and very windy when they started, but 
the wind kept rising instead of falling, and 
the waves kept growing higher and higher, 
until it seemed as if every wave would 
swamp the boat. It required all the skill 
father had, and he was a good boatman, 
to keep the craft steady. 

" They had no time to notice my poor 
mother, who sat forward with her two chil- 
dren clasped in her arms in a perfect stupor 
of terror. Every wave dashed its spray over 



22 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

her, until she was wet through and through, 
and every time the boat went down into the 
trough of a sea she shuddered with all the 
agony of a belief that it would never rise 
again. She uttered no cry and made no 
moan, but when the boat at last touched 
the shore she picked up her baby, and with- 
out a word to any one started and ran like 
a wild deer into the woods. 

" Father ran after her, calling upon her, 
' Why, Sallie, what is the matter ? where are 
you going ? ' and when he caught up with 
her she fell fainting into his arms. It was 
not many weeks after that when Eber was 
born, and for a long time they did n't think 
he 'd live, and that if he did live he would 
be a sickly child, and would never amount 
to anything. But they were all mistaken," 
said grandma, and a little smile of pleasure 
and pride lighted her face. 

"Was that uncle Eber?" said little 
Emily. 

" Was it ? " echoed big Emily. 

" Wa 'd it unco Eby ? " said the small boy. 

"It was your uncle Eber; he is your 
grand-uncle, you know." 






EARLY DAYS. 23 

" But to come to the New England days. 
We lived a very happy and contented life 
there. I learned how to do housework, and 
how to spin. I remember when I was 
seven I was n't satisfied unless I spun as 
much yarn as Huldah Seymour did, a girl 
in the neighborhood who was sixteen. I 
thought I was a woman, and ought to do 
a woman's work. Father was away almost 
all that time with uncle Sam on Lake 
Ontario, carrying troops back and forth, 
for three years of the five were during the 
war of 181 2 to 1 81 5, when it closed. 

" One incident that happened about this 
time made a very strong impression upon 
my mind. I must have been six or seven 
years old. I remember it was after dark, 
for mother had a candle in her hand when 
she went to the door in response to a great 
rap ; when she opened it a big, burly, ugly 
looking man in soldier's clothes walked in. 
He said he wanted to stay there all night. 
My mother told him he could n't stay there, 
she had no room for him; but she told 
him there was a tavern (there were no 
hotels in those days) a little ways off. He 



24 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

said he had n't any money, and he could n't 
go to the tavern. She said there were 
plenty of places he could stay near by, but 
he could n't stay there ; and after more 
conversation, that kept growing louder and 
uglier on his part, he, with a great oath, 
knocked the candle out of her hand, and 
heaven knows what he would have done; 
but as the candle went out a blow from a 
heavy fist struck him in the face, another 
blow knocked him down, and then some- 
body sat on him and pommeled him so 
fast that he could n't defend himself." 

Here the children clasped their hands, 
and their eyes grew big and round. 

" ' For God's sake, madam,' he implored, 
1 don't kill me, I will go away.' 

" No reply, but more pounding. 

" ' For God's sake, madam, let me up ! 
I '11 never strike a woman again. Don't kill 
me ! ' he cried. 

" After he was well punished he was told 
to get up, and the candle was lighted, and 
the fellow discovered that it was n't a wo- 
man at all who had been pounding him, 
but a big, broad-shouldered man. 



EARLY DAYS. 25 

"You see I had not liked the looks of 
him, nor the manner in which he spoke to 
my mother," said grandma ; "so I had 
slipped out of the back door and run over 
to uncle Josh, who lived near by, and told 
him there was an ugly man talking to 
mother, and I wanted him to come with 
me right away. He put on his hat, and we 
walked quick, and then waited on the porch 
and looked through the window, so he could 
both see and hear what the fellow intended. 
As soon as he knocked the candle out of 
mother's hand, uncle Josh opened the door 
and sprang upon him, with the result I 
just told you." 

" Oh," said golden-haired Emily, " ain't I 
glad uncle Josh pounded him." 

M And I, too," said little Emily. 

" And me too," echoed baby Portie. 

" Well," said grandma, " your uncle Josh, 
though he was your great grand-uncle, was 
a good man, for after asking the man a 
few questions, and giving him a little good 
advice about treating helpless women and 
children, he gave him fifty cents to pay for 
his lodging and food at the tavern. Fifty 



26 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

cents went farther in those days than they 
do now," said grandma, thoughtfully. 

" Did 1'at man hurt your mamma?" said 
Portie, wistfully. 

" Oh no, my dear, but he intended to," 
and grandma kissed the eager little face. 
Then two other pairs of lips were put up 
for a kiss, and little Emily said, " Oh, tell 
us another story;" and the other children 
said, " Oh do." But grandma replied, " Let 
us wait until to-morrow ; " and the mammas 
said, " Yes, children, you go and play now," 
and rose to get their little bonnets and 
call Chloe the nurse. Then the children 
slipped off grandma's lap, and away they 
went with Gyp barking at their heels; and 
grandma went to her writing table and be- 
gan to write letters, and the aunties picked 
up books and began to read, and all was 
still for a time. 



LOST ON THE MOUNTAINS. 




RANDMA sat in her big easy- 
chair with Gyp and the baby in 
her lap, and the two little Emilys 
sat in their little chairs near by, leaning 
on her, and looking up eagerly at her so as 
not to miss a word. 

Now I must tell you some more about 
these children, who they were, and how they 
looked. The two little Emilys were cous- 
ins only six months apart in age, and at 
this time they were six and six and a half 
years old. But the oldest Emily was a 
little bit of a thing, with light brown hair 
and the cunningest little face in the world ; 
and the youngest Emily was a great big 
girl for her age, with bright, golden, curling 
hair and the rosiest cheeks imaginable; 
and as they were both named after their 
grandma, they were distinguished by the 
adjectives big and little. The oldest Emily 



28 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

was little Emily, and the youngest Em- 
ily was big Emily. We often called her 
"Golden-Hair." 

The baby was big Emily's little brother, 
and a big baby he was, too, for he was three 
years old, and considered himself a rather 
important personage, as babies are apt to 
do ; and he was so considered by every mem- 
ber of the family, especially grandma, who 
showed her partiality for him in a way 
that amused his aunt Frank very much. 
For when his mamma would correct in any 
way his little sister Emily, grandma would 
look very complaisant, and say, " Florence " 
(that was the children's mamma's name), — 
" Florence is a very judicious mother ; she 
manages her children exceedingly well." 
But if from the upper regions of the nur- 
sery a wail would issue, as from a spanked 
or closeted boy, grandma would immedi- 
ately look serious, assume a keenly listen- 
ing attitude, and say, with some asperity, 
"Florence ought to be careful how she 
punishes that boy. He is a very delicate 
child, and should be managed with great 
tenderness. I think she is a great deal too 



LOST ON THE MOUNTAINS. 29 

severe with him," and grandma's eyes would 
flash ominously. But I will say for her that 
she had the good sense never to interfere, 
at least with what was done up-stairs. 

Grandma herself was a fine, plump old 
lady, with a pair of the keenest gray eyes 
and a look of the greatest benevolence, as 
there ought to be in a woman who had 
spent her whole life doing good. And 
Gyp, — well, he was a dog that knew most 
everything; he could play ball as well as 
a boy, and had as good as saved grandmas 
life twice, though he was a little fellow 
that you could easily hold in your lap. Of 
course there were mammas and aunties 
around, but they are of no great conse- 
quence, and as for uncles, we don't mention 
them. 

" What am I to tell you about this time ? " 
said grandma. 

" Tell us about being lost on the moun- 
tains," replied one of the mammas, and 
grandma proceeded. 

" My mother had told my sister Sallie and 
me that if we were good little girls we might 
go raspberrying up on the mountains, when 



3<D GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

raspberries were ripe ; so we had made extra 
efforts to be good, for we thought that 
would be great fun. When the day came 
we were in high spirits only dampened by 
the thought that Eber and Abba could n't 
go too. Abba whimpered and Eber looked 
sorrowful, but mother said they were too 
small to take, on such a long walk ; so they 
watched us, as they hung on the gate, until 
we were out of sight. Mother had put us 
up a nice lunch in the pails we were to fill 
with berries, and we started off with very 
light hearts and happy faces. 

" The house we lived in was not far from 
the foot of the steep side of the mountain ; 
but we could not climb that, so we took the 
road that wound up the mountain in quite 
a different direction, and which was not at 
all steep. We were as happy as two chil- 
dren could well be, and sister Sallie, who 
was a spry and active little girl, would skip 
about and pick up every pretty flower and 
stone she fancied. She was very slender, 
and very pretty, I thought, while I was a 
great, big, thick-set, clumsy girl, and consid- 
ered myself homely." 



LOST ON THE MOUNTAINS. 31 

" I know you were just as pretty as 
Sallie ! " exclaimed both Emilys, with great 
earnestness. 

" No, I was n't," said grandma ; " but 
though she was only fifteen months younger 
than I was, I thought I must take care of 
her. It was not so very far, not more than 
two miles" — 

" Two miles ! " cried little Emily and big 
Emily in one breath. 

— " before we reached a place where the 
berries were very thick. It did n't take long 
to fill my pail, and then I helped Sallie fill 
hers, for she never could work very fast, and 
she 'd eat as many as she 'd put in the pail ; 
but I thought I must fill my pail first, and 
eat afterwards. After that we sat down 
under a beautiful big tree and ate our 
lunch, and I can remember now how gayly 
the birds sang and how lovely everything 
looked. After we had lunched and played 
about a little while, I told Sallie we must 
start for home, for it was a long walk ; so we 
put on our sun-bonnets and picked up our 
little pails, that were full of the ripe berries, 
and started for home, as we thought. 



32 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

" We walked a long time in the unthink- 
ing, joyous way children have, when it oc- 
curred to me that we were on the wrong 
path ; but I did n't tell Sallie, for I knew 
that it would frighten her, and that she 
would cry ; so I kept going on, hoping to 
find the right one. After a while I saw 
that we had been going up the mountain 
all this time instead of down, and that we 
were lost. Then I had to tell Sallie, and 
she sat down and cried, just as I expected. 
Her imagination was very strong, and she 
thought we would have to stay out there all 
night, and that we would be eaten by the 
bears. I did n't know myself but that might 
come to pass, but I knew if we were to get 
out that night it would depend upon me to 
do it ; so I told her not to cry, but to come 
with me, and I would find a way home. 

" She dried her tears and picked up her 
pail, and we started ; for she believed that 
everything I said I would do I could do. 
We changed our course, but by this time we 
had got far from any paths, and as I did n't 
really know where to go I just walked on 
and on. After a good deal of very hard 



LOST ON THE MOUNTAINS. 33 

walking we came to the brow of the moun- 
tain that overlooked our house. 

" ' See ! ' I shouted with joy ; ' there 's 
mother's house ! ' " 

" ' Yes,' said Sallie, ' but how are we ever 
to get to it ? ' and her eyes scanned the 
nearly perpendicular side of the mountain. 

" I must say I felt very much dismayed at 
the prospect. I did n't think we 'd ever get 
back by the road, for I feared we could n't 
find it; but I said more cheerfully than 
I felt, ' Oh, we can do it easy enough ; you 
just follow me.' At first it was n't very bad, 
— not so very steep, — and we got on pretty 
well ; but after a while it grew steeper, 
and we had to walk with great care ; and 
then it grew worse and worse, and Sallie 
sat down and began to cry. ' Oh, mother, 
mother,' she said, ' why don't you come and 
help your little girls? We will never get 
home; the bears will eat us up, — there is 
one now ! ' and she started up and screamed 
in terror; but it was nothing but a black 
stump in the distance. 

" I wanted to cry too, but I knew if I did 
she would be so terrified she would n't be 



34 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

able to walk a step, so I said, ' Come, Sallie, 
we must hurry if we want to get home to- 
night ; give me your pail, and then you '11 
have nothing to manage but yourself.' 

" I took the pail, and fastened it and my 
own around me somehow, I can't remember 
how, so that I could have my hands free. 
I told her I 'd go ahead, and that wher- 
ever I stepped she could step, — whatever 
would hold me would hold her, as she 
was n't so heavy as I. This comforted her, 
and she wiped away her tears, and we 
started. 

" Very soon the side of the mountain 
grew so steep that we could only move very 
slowly, first putting one foot down very 
carefully on a little projection and trying it 
to see if it would hold, in the mean time 
hanging on with our hands to any little 
shrub that grew near by. Sallie followed 
in my steps : wherever my foot had been, 
hers came after; what twigs had held me 
held her as she followed. So she felt quite 
at her ease, as she could climb like a squir- 
rel, and she knew there was safety in fol- 
lowing my steps. 



LOST ON THE MOUNTAINS. 35 

" Sometimes a slight pressure would send 
the sand and gravel from under my foot, 
and away it would go rattling down the 
mountain ; then I would try for another 
and firmer foothold. No one but children 
or monkeys could ever have made that 
descent," said grandma, thoughtfully. 

Here the two Emilys heaved a great sigh, 
but they did n't speak, so anxious were they 
to hear the rest. 

" Well, we had gone on in that way quite 
a while, and were beginning to feel com- 
paratively easy in our minds. We had 
only about eighty feet farther of the steep 
side to go, and then a gentle descent of 
woods would take us to the fields, where 
two men were working ; across the fields 
was home, where mother and Eber and 
Abba were waiting for us. 

" I knew mother was wondering where we 
were, and I was afraid she would n't like it 
because we had stayed so long. While I was 
thinking of it all my foot slipped, the twig 
I was holding broke, and down, down I 
went, thumping against the slight projec- 
tions, scratched by the shrubs and scraped 



36 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

by the stones. In the midst of it all I 
thought of my precious berries, and tried to 
save them, but it was of no use. 

"When I got to the bottom the berries 
were all spilt, and I thought every bone in 
my body was broken. I lay quite still for a 
time, unable to move. Sallie was clinging 
to the twig she had last taken hold of, 
afraid to stir, and screaming at the top of 
her lungs. 

" The men in the fields were not very 
far away, and they soon came running to 
the spot to see what the screams were 
about, and very thankful I was to see them. 
I was covered with blood, my clothes were 
torn, my face and hands and body were all 
scratched up, but I was thinking more how 
we could get Sallie down from her perch 
than I was of myself. 

" Nothing we could say would induce her 
to take another step ; she knew she would 
fall if she did, and that would kill her. 

" I shouted back, * It did n't kill me, and 
it won't kill you if you do fall ! ' 

" But even that had no effect, and the men 
had to go a roundabout way up the moun- 



LOST ON THE MOUNTAINS. 37 

tain, get poles and fasten them together, 
and reach them down for her to take hold 
of, so they could pull her up. The end of 
the pole she was to take hold of had a pro- 
jecting branch, so that if she once grasped 
it she could n't slip off. 

" Even after the pole was lowered to her 
she was afraid to take hold, afraid to let 
go the twig for fear she 'd fall, and nothing 
would persuade her to let go of the one and 
take hold of the other unless I would stand 
up and hold my apron out directly under 
her, so that if she fell she would fall into 
my apron." 

Here grandma, with a tear in her eye, 
said, " You see, Sallie was such a child, — 
only six; and she thought nothing bad 
could happen to her if I only stretched out 
a hand to help her." 

"And you were only a little more than 
seven," observed one of the mammas. 

" But I seemed older," said grandma. 
" So, all bruised and bleeding and aching, I 
got on to my feet, and held my apron out 
under the dear child. With perfect faith 
that now everything was all right, she took 



38 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

hold of the pole, and was soon drawn up 
to a place of safety. 

" One of the men took her in his arms 
and carried her down ; and when they got 
down the other man took me in his arms, 
for I was too bruised to walk. They car- 
ried us home to mother, who you may be 
sure received us joyfully." 

Here the children put up their faces to 
be kissed. They could n't think of any 
other way to express their joy that every- 
thing had turned out right. 



A THOUGHTLESS LITTLE GIRL. 




HE next day the children and mam- 
mas and aunties were in grandma's 
sitting-room, ready for stories, and 
after the usual question, "What shall I 
tell you ? " had been satisfactorily answered, 
grandma began. 

"This happened," said grandma medita- 
tively, as she looked up over her gold-bowed 
spectacles, " the fall after I was seven years 
old. That year was called the 'starving 
year ' for many years after, for the crops had 
failed entirely in many places, and in none 
was there a full crop ; so that many people 
who had good farms and houses had hard 
work to get all they wanted to eat. Grand- 
father Ward had sent wagon-loads of pro- 
visions to uncle Zael's and uncle Nathan's 
families in Scroon, and grandfather Potter 
had sent supplies to the Wyman aunts. 
Their crops had failed, and they had n't 
raised enough to keep them from starving. 



40 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

" I remember it well, and how sorry I felt 
for the poor people who had nothing to eat. 
We had enough, though we did n't eat any 
white bread that year. Corn bread, and 
rye and indian, was all we got, but that 
was more than a great many had. An in- 
cident that occurred that year made a very 
strong impression on my mind, though I 
was so young. 

" A good many of the little school-girls 
were going up on the mountains one Satur- 
day to get blueberries. Mother had said I 
might go too. She filled a basket full of 
dinner for me, for we were going to stay all 
day. We had a merry walk up the old 
mountains, and found the berries thick. 
We worked hard and picked fast, and by 
noon we were quite hungry. We found a 
nice, pretty place on some rocks that over- 
looked a deep chasm, and sat down under 
the trees to eat our lunch. 

" The poor little girls who had none sat a 
little way apart, and ate their berries, look- 
ing sorry and hungry, and a little ashamed, 
too, because they were poor. I could n't 
stand that, so I walked over quietly and 
divided my dinner among them." 



A THOUGHTLESS LITTLE GIRL. 41 

" Did n't you keep anything for your- 
self ? " said big Emily, opening her blue 
eyes wide. 

" No, not a bit. I had had a good break- 
fast that morning, and they had n't ; I should 
have a good supper when I got home, and 
they would n't : so I gave it all to them. 
Mother had put up a good deal, thinking, 
doubtless, that there would be some who 
had none. 

14 But there was one little girl there who 
had a basket full of good things, white bread 
and cake and dainties, which none but those 
who were rich could have that year. She 
sat and talked with the other children who 
were eating about how rich her father was, 
and what good things they had to eat ; and 
when she had eaten her fill she stood up on 
the rock and threw what she had left down 
the mountain, and said, ' That is to feed 
birds.' The poor hungry little girls looked 
wistfully at her, thinking how much they 
would have liked those pieces. 

" I shall never forget how I felt, nor how 
wicked I thought that little girl was to 
throw away food that was needed so much. 



42 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

I told my mother when I went home, and 
she said 'that the little girl was thought- 
less, but that it was a wicked thoughtless- 
ness to waste what would feed the starving." 
" She was a naughty little girl," said 
Portie, shaking his curls. " Tell us another 
story, grandma." 



A LONG SLEIGH-RIDE. 




HIS time the children were rather 
cross. They all wanted to sit on 
grandma's lap, and they did n't any 
of them intend to give way to any of the 
others ; and to add to the confusion lit- 
tle Eber, from the other house (the other 
house was uncle Eber's house, and little 
Eber was his youngest boy), who was just 
Portie's age, had come over, and he did n't 
want to sit anywhere, but to go off and play 
with Portie. 

Now, Gyp was already in grandma's lap ; 
he had a way of getting in between grand- 
ma and the child on her knee, and very 
politely and shrewdly, and apparently with- 
out the least intending it, shoving the child 
to the edge of the lap, so that it would slide 
off itself. The children knew that by ex- 
perience, and they did n't intend to let Gyp 
stay there ; but he had the floor, so to speak, 
or rather the lap, and he was barking vigor- 



44 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

ously, and defending his position with some 
skill against the combined attacks of the 
foe ; and there is no telling what would have 
happened if the mammas and the aunties 
had n't come to the rescue, and deposited 
the children around in small chairs, while 
Gyp, grinning from ear to ear, his tongue 
lolling out and his tail waving triumph- 
antly, held the fort, — I mean the lap. 

Grandma had n't said anything during 
this period of confusion and anarchy, but 
when quiet was restored, as usual she 
wanted to know " what story they wanted," 
and as usual one of the grown-ups spoke 
up and said, " This time tell us about the 
sleigh-ride through New York from Ver- 
mont to Pennsylvania." 

" In the fall of 1817," said grandma, mak- 
ing a sudden beginning, as if she thought 
the sooner she got at it the sooner it would 
be over, " your great-grandfather went down 
to Kentucky, in order to make a sale of 
salted white fish that he had taken in the 
way of trade with the Indians and white in- 
habitants who had settled along the shores 
of Lakes Huron and Erie. He made a sue- 



A LONG SLEIGH-RIDE. 45 

cessful trip, from a financial point of view, 
and was exceedingly pleased with the coun- 
try, the climate, and the inhabitants; so 
much so that he made up his mind to move 
his family there the coming winter. 

" My father was a true pioneer," said 
grandma ; " he never went to a new place 
but he wanted to pick up all his household 
and move there. He ought to have been a 
Methodist minister, and then I don't know 
that moving once a year would have satis- 
fied him. I remember that as a very young 
child I hated it, and I thought when I had 
a home of my own I never would move, and 
I never did but once. 

" My father was a great reader, and though 
not an active politician took great interest 
in all political events. He was an ardent 
Whig, and later on a Free-Soiler and an 
Abolitionist." 

Here the children yawned and rustled 
around in their chairs, but grandma did n't 
take any notice. 

" I remember hearing him say, when he 
came back from Kentucky, that it was a 
paradise in everything but slavery, but that 



46 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

that was a great evil, and sooner or later 
there would be war between the North and 
South on account of it. 1817 was early in 
the day for such a prediction, and showed 
that your great-grandfather had a clear 
head. 

" The day after the Christmas of 181 7 we 
started on the long journey." 

Here the children recovered their anima- 
tion. 

" Father, mother, and four children were 
snugly tucked away in a long sleigh. It 
was covered with strong canvas, something 
after the manner of the emigrant wagons 
you see pictures of. Three long chests, 
full of linen and clothing and what house- 
hold stuff it was thought best to take, were 
arranged as seats ; and feather-beds, covered 
with some kind of cloth to keep the ticks 
clean, were put in the bottom of the sleigh, 
so that we children could lie down, or sit 
there and play if we wanted to. The sleigh 
was drawn by two stout horses, and though 
we felt a little sorry at leaving the uncles 
and aunts and grandparents, the sorrow was 
somewhat counterbalanced by the extraor- 



A LONG SLEIGH-RIDE. 47 

dinary preparations that had been made, 
and the prospect of such a long ride into 
the beautiful country that father talked so 
much about. 

" I remember the tears in mother's eyes 
made me more unhappy than anything else, 
as we rode away from the Vermont home 
that cold winter morning, amidst the tears 
and good-bys and God-bless-you's from 
those who were left behind. A long jour- 
ney, in those days, into the western wilds of 
Ohio, Kentucky, or Michigan usually meant 
that those who went would never return, 
and that they saw for the last time the 
dear home of their childhood. It was a sad 
parting for the older ones. But we children 
were too young to think much about that 
A certain chest full of mince pies, dough- 
nuts, fruit cake, bread, preserves, apples, and 
other goodies filled the imaginations of the 
other children, and lay a sweet thought in 
my own mind, — though I would n't have 
said so, for I felt I was too old for such 
childishness, — and undoubtedly allayed 
some of the pangs of parting. Then, too, 
children were not petted so much by their 



48 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

aunts and uncles as they are nowadays, and 
therefore were not so fond of them. 

" It was a very cold winter, — the snow 
creaked all the way from Vermont to Au- 
rora, at the western end of New York; 
but we did n't feel cold, for we were very 
warmly dressed in flannel from head to toe, 
both inside and out. Everything we chil- 
dren had on, except one undergarment, was 
made of the good strong flannel that every 
thrifty New England family had an abun- 
dance of. Almost every family spun wool 
from their own sheep ; but if they had no 
sheep, they bought wool and spun it." 

" What is sheeps ? " said little Eber ; but 
his nurse said, " Hush," and grandma went 
on : — 

" Though I was but a little girl, not quite 
nine, I had helped spin the wool that had 
been woven into our clothes, and I felt a 
great pride and satisfaction in it. I thought 
more of those dresses than I ever thought of 
much finer dresses that I have had since." 

" Grandma," said big Emily, " did you 
make the cloth too ? " 

" No ; a good old woman, who lived at 



A LONG SLEIGH-RIDE. 49 

the foot of a great hill, all alone, with no- 
body but her big gray cat for company, did 
our weaving for us. We children used to 
like to watch the shuttle fly back and forth, 
and hear the click of the treadles after the 
shuttle had gone through. But I am wan- 
dering from the story. 

" The New York of 181 7 was not the New 
York of to-day, covered with fine farms and 
rich cities, and traversed by splendid roads ; 
with railroads everywhere, and steamers on 
all the navigable waters. There was not a 
railroad in the whole world then " — " Oh, 
oh ! " cried the children — " and not many 
steamboats ; none at all on the Great Lakes 
and big Western rivers. And as for New 
York, it had very few good roads, compara- 
tively few farms, and only two cities of any 
size, — Albany and New York. 

" Buffalo was a little town of five hun- 
dred people, situated in a wilderness, and 
Rochester had just been incorporated as a 
village. 

" But it did n't make any difference to 
us whether there were any cities or towns 
in the State or not, as long as father and 



5<D GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

mother were with us, and we had plenty to 
eat and were warm and cozy in the sleigh. 
I don't remember what route we took. All 
I can remember is that we rode day after 
day through forests that stretched along for 
miles. Once in a while we would come 
across a clearing with a log house, and a 
woman and children would look out of the 
window. Every noon we would stop at 
some such place and eat our lunch, and 
father would have cider heated for us to 
drink, to warm us up. At night we would 
stop at some log tavern, where we would 
sleep, and eat a hot supper and breakfast 
in a big room that was both kitchen and 
dining-room. Sometimes, at a village like 
Utica or Syracuse, we would stay at a bet- 
ter tavern. But everything was primitive, in 
this country, in those days, and people lived 
hard and fared hard ; but they were healthier 
and hardier than they are now," and grandma 
looked about on her rather delicate descen- 
dants as if she did n't like the change. 

" Yes," she said, " I could do more work 
when I was your age than you four girls 
put together." 



A LONG SLEIGH-RIDE. 51 

Grandma always called the mammas and 
aunties " girls," as if they were still little ; 
and the " girls " smiled at grandma, and the 
children looked at their mammas and aunt- 
ies, and thought they were great grown-up 
women, ever so old. 

11 Grandma, did you see bears ? " said 
Portie. 

" No, I don't remember that I did, but 
we kept looking out for them all the time, 
especially Eber; and we heard the wolves 
howl sometimes, nights when we would be 
out late, and occasionally saw a panther 
slinking along. It was so cold that all the 
little animals had gone into their holes, and 
all the birds had gone South, and snow was 
everywhere. 

11 Driving along one morning, we over- 
took a team that was moving household 
goods. A boy of ten was hanging on behind, 
and he looked very cold. Father shouted 
to the boy's father that the child was almost 
frozen, but the man paid no attention. 
When we got to the tavern the boy was 
nearly dead ; he could not walk and could 
scarcely speak. They started to carry him 



52 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

into the warm room, but my father would 
not let them, and made them take him into 
a cold room, strip him, and rub him with 
snow until he was warm. I remember father 
said, ' That man is n't fit to have children.' ' 

" No, indeed," said the children. 

" And I thought what a good father we 
had to keep us so warm and comfortable. 
Every morning and noon he would have 
bricks heated through and through and 
wrapped up in cloth and put in the sleigh, 
so as to keep it warm for us. 

" So we rode on and on every day but 
Sundays, for six weeks, when we got to Wil- 
linick, in the western part of New York. 
Willinick is called Aurora now. 

" Here father and mother each had a sis- 
ter married to two brothers by the name of 
Lewis, and it was here that father was sick 
six weeks with pleurisy, and came very near 
dying. We children did n't enjoy the stay 
at Willinick half as much as we did the 
sleigh-riding, and very glad we were when 
father was well enough to start off again. 

" But it did n't take but a few days 
longer to get to Watertown, in Pennsylva- 



A LONG SLEIGH-RIDE. 53 

nia, where we were to stay until navigation 
opened. Watertown was on French creek, 
and French creek was a branch of the Al- 
leghany, and the Alleghany a branch of the 
Ohio. 

" We were to take a boat, you see, at 
Watertown, and ride until we got to the 
Alleghany River, then down the Alleghany 
to the Ohio River, and there was Pittsburg, 
a thriving little town even at this early 
date ; from there on the Ohio to Cincinnati, 
another thriving little town. From there we 
were to go by land to Lexington, Kentucky. 

" We children were delighted with the 
idea of such a long ride on the water, espe- 
cially Eber, who always had a boat of some 
kind if there was any water to float it, if it 
was only a toy boat in a tub. We expected 
to do a good deal of fishing and splashing 
our hands in the water, and have unknown 
joys that we could n't even imagine, for chil- 
dren are always expecting the impossible. 

" But all our happy anticipations were 
brought to an end by our mother's death, 
which changed our father's plans entirely, 
and altered the whole course of our lives." 



MY MOTHER'S DEATH. 




H, what a sad time it was when my 
mother died ! " and grandma's lips 
trembled, as if the memory of it 
were as fresh and bitter in her mind as if 
it had occurred last year instead of seventy 
years ago. 

" We had rented half of the house of a 
good Quaker family, and were to stay there 
until the ice was out of the river. How well 
I remember coming in one morning with 
the other children, and seeing mother knead- 
ing some bread ! She seemed in distress. 
After kneading it awhile on the table she 
put the bread bowl in a chair, and then 
on the table again. I saw she was in pain, 
and I said, ' Mamma, are you sick ? ' and 
she replied, 'Yes, I don't feel very well.' 
1 I '11 knead the bread for you,' I said. ' Do 
you think you can do it, my child ? ' she 
asked. ' Oh yes, indeed, I can.' 

" Then she went into the bed-room and 



MY MOTHER'S DEATH. 55 

began to undress. Father came in at that 
moment, and he said, ' Why, Sallie, are you 
sick ? ' She answered, ' Yes, Eber, I am 
very sick.' 

" He helped her to bed, and they talked 
awhile, and then he went out after a doctor 
and some women to help take care of her. 
They would n't let me stay in the room 
much, but once, when they were all out, I 
went in, and mother asked me to bring her 
a drink of water. I got it for her, and 
while I was getting it I wiped the tears off 
my face, so she would not know I had been 
crying. When I handed her the water she 
looked at me long and earnestly, and said, 
' Why, my little daughter, you have been 
crying; what is the matter? ' 

" I burst into tears then, and said, * Oh, 
mother, I 'm afraid you are going to die.' 
She replied, ' I hope not, my little daugh- 
ter; but I never was so sick before in my 
life ; ' and then she said, while looking at 
me mournfully, ' You must be a good little 
girl, and mind your father and take good 
care of your little brother and sisters.' 

" Ah," said grandma, while the tears 



56 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

rushed into her eyes and rolled down her 
cheeks, " I never forgot her look and her 
tone of voice, nor what she said, and I 
obeyed her as long as they all lived. 

" At night we children were sent up-stairs 
to bed, but I could not sleep. I rolled and 
tossed about for a long time ; finally, I got 
up and dressed, and went and sat on the 
stairs. I shall never forget what a wonderful 
moonlight night it was, and how the bright 
beams streamed in through the windows, 
and how it glorified everything in-doors 
and out, and how still and solemn every- 
thing seemed. 

" Once the door of mother's room was 
opened for a moment, and I slipped in ; but 
a woman told me to go out, and I went. In 
the mean time father had sent to Erie, fif- 
teen miles away, for another physician ; and 
towards morning one came, but not the one 
that was sent for, for he was away. He 
examined mother carefully, gave her some 
medicine, and said the danger was over now 
and she would be better soon, but that he 
was going to the tavern, and would be back 
in an hour. 



MY MOTHER'S DEATH. 57 

" Then the women went home, for they all 
had household cares, and the good Quaker 
lady asked father and us children to take 
breakfast with her. Father could not go, 
and I said I could not eat, and I did not 
want anything. Mother was very quiet, but 
soon she looked up and asked for a drink. 
I brought it to her, and father took the 
glass to help her, but she could not swallow 
the water ; he laid her gently back on the 
pillow, and with two or three long-drawn 
sighs she was gone." 

Here grandma wiped the tears from her 
eyes. " Oh, but she was a good mother," 
said she, " and the lessons of neatness and 
industry and right-doing she taught me I 
never forgot ; what I would have done 
without them in the trying years that fol- 
lowed I don't know. I never went to bed, 
after she died, without seeing that the chil- 
dren were fast asleep, and that the fire was 
fixed so that no accident could happen, and 
without making every preparation for the 
morning's work. 

" I used to lie awake at night thinking of 
mother, wondering if she knew how hard I 



58 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

tried to be a mother to the children, and to 
make father happy, and to do my duty ; and 
many a night I have cried myself to sleep, 
holding my youngest sister in my arms. 

" Once, in one of these vigils, I thought I 
saw her. The moon was shining bright, 
and I was just as wide awake as I am at 
this moment. Right by the bed, leaning 
over me, I saw her dear face, just as she 
looked in life, only more beautiful, gazing 
at me with such a yearning look of love, and 
yet so peaceful and contented ; and she said 
to me, ' My little daughter, do not mourn 
for me ; be a good little girl, take care of 
your little brother and sisters, and all will be 
well.' Then she seemed to melt away. 

" It comforted me more than I can say. 
I used to think about it a great deal, and I 
felt as if I had indeed seen my dear mother, 
and that what she said was true." 

" Did n't she ever come again ? " said 
golden-haired Emily. 

" Never," said grandma ; " and later in life 
I thought possibly I might have dreamed it, 
but it did n't seem so at the time." 





WE GO TO NEW SALEM. 

FTER my mother died, father did 
not know which way to turn. He 
had loved her dearly, and it seemed 
to take from his life all there was of value. 

" Uncle Sam wrote to father from New 
Salem, Ohio, a little town on Lake Erie, 
now called Conneaut, telling him he must 
not take his motherless little children to 
such a far-off country as Kentucky, where 
he had no relatives to help him look after 
them, but to come to him, and he and his 
wife would help him take care of them until 
he could get settled. 

So we turned our course and went to 
Erie by land, and there we took a boat, and 
went the rest of the way by water. 

" Taking a boat at that time and on Lake 
Erie did n't mean getting on board a pretty 
steamer with handsome saloons and com- 
fortable state-rooms, but it meant a big, open 



60 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

sail-boat, something like the fishing-boats 
they have at Mackinaw now. 

" One rather rugged, squally day in April, 
we children and the household goods were 
snugly packed away in such a boat, and 
father and the man who owned it were to 
sail it. It seemed to me a very different 
thing from what I had expected in the 
sail down the various rivers to Cincinnati. 
Mother was gone, — gone never to return ; 
to heaven, they said, but where was heaven ? 
We did not know, but we did know that we 
were left alone with father, who had always 
been away from home so much that we 
did n't feel well acquainted with him, and 
that we had no mother to care for us, to 
direct us, and to love us. 

"I felt that my own responsibility for 
the younger children was great, and I tried 
to do everything for them that mother had 
usually done. 

" I know this particular morning we sat 
very still and quiet, not talking even to 
each other, and father had been so occupied 
in his various duties that he had only paid 
us the necessary attention of seeing us safe 
in the boat. 



WE GO TO NEW SALEM. 6 1 

" We had sailed for some time, when we 
stopped, and father and the man hauled the 
boat up on the beach, unloaded the goods, 
and helped us children out ; then they got 
back, pushed off, pulled up the sails, and 
made off. We watched them for a while 
in silent amazement ; but as father neither 
spoke nor even looked back where we 
were, and the boat kept sailing on and on, 
we looked at each other and burst into 
tears. 

" ' Oh,' sobbed Abba, the youngest child, 
1 mother is dead, and father has gone and 
left us to starve, and there is no one to take 
care of us ! ' and she threw herself on the 
ground, and cried aloud with grief and 
terror. Sallie did about the same thing; 
but though Eber and I cried too, for we 
thought father had gone and left us to die, 
we also had to think. 

" After the first transports of grief were 
over we began to plan what we should do. 
Eber said he would n't die there ; he 'd 
walk up to New Salem, and uncle Sam 
would take care of him, and he 'd take us 
too ; he was n't afraid of bears ; he 'd carry 



62 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

Abba half the way, and I could carry her 
the other half; and as for Miss Sallie, he 
said, with a merry twinkle in his eyes, she 
could just walk herself. 

" I can see him now," said grandma : " a 
short, stout boy of only six years, but with 
the pluck of a man. I agreed to what he 
said; and while we were in the midst of 
our plans for the journey, and trying to 
soothe Sallie and Abba, lo and behold ! 
there was the boat, and father and the man 
were already hauling it up on the beach. 

" We wiped the tears from our faces as 
quickly as we could, but even father's pre- 
occupied eyes could see that something 
unusual had happened. 

" * Well, my little children/ he said, * what 
is the matter ? Why have you been cry- 
ing?' 

" The revulsion of feeling was too much 
for us, and we all began to cry again, and 
with a voice broken by sobs Abba told him 
that we thought our mother was dead, and 
that our father had gone and left us to 
starve. 

" ' My poor children ! ' he said, while the 



WE GO TO NEW SALEM. 63 

tears rolled down his face ; ' how could you 
think so ! I supposed you knew what we 
intended to do.' 

" The harbor of Erie is protected on one 
side by a long, narrow strip of land that 
runs quite a distance out into the lake, and 
as that day the water was very rough father 
thought he would leave us children and the 
baggage while he took the boat around the 
point of land, come up on the other side, 
take us on board again, and so save us from 
being sea-sick in the high waves that were 
running farther out. 

" After he had explained it to us w r e felt 
a good deal ashamed that we had thought 
so hardly of our father, who had always 
been good to us. 

" We did n't go far that day. The wind 
blew very hard off shore, and the waves 
kept growing higher and higher, so that in 
spite of all care one would, every now and 
then, dash over the boat. The clouds too, 
grew heavier and blacker, and it began to 
rain, so that we had to go on shore. 

" It was not an easy thing to get the boat 
on the beach without swamping it, with the 



64 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

wind and the water both trying to toss it a 
hundred different ways. 

" We children sat in silence, nestled close 
together towards the forward part of the 
boat, watching with the keenest interest 
the wild play of the waves and the winds 
and the clouds. Once in a while Abba 
would dive her head into my lap to shut 
out the scene that terrified her, but Eber 
sat with his hands in his pockets, perfectly 
calm, and apparently enjoying everything. 
Sometimes when a towering wave would 
seem to be threatening to swamp boat and 
crew and passengers, he would look a little 
keener-eyed than usual, and as the boat 
would rise upon the wave a long-drawn 
sigh would be all the evidence of excited 
feeling he would give. Sallie clung to me 
in silent terror ; and as for myself, I did n't 
have any time to be afraid, I was thinking 
so much of soothing the fears of Sallie and 
Abba. 

" We got ashore safe enough, but wet to 
the skin. The boat was pulled up on dry 
land and turned bottom up, so as to protect 
the household stuff from the rain that was 



WE GO TO NEW SALEM. 65 

now coming down in torrents ; and we chil- 
dren and father and the man crawled under 
it, too, until the rain should stop, when 
they would fix a camp ; for there was no 
getting out of the place for that day, and 
perhaps not the next. 

" When the rain ceased to pour and had 
become a light drizzle, father and the man 
took their axes and began to make prepara- 
tions to build a camp. We stayed under 
the boat, and looked out to see what was 
going on. 

" The man collected the wood for a big 
fire : first a great log from a tree that had 
been dead so long it was dry, — that was 
for a back log; then pieces of wood and 
dry branches were piled around it and on 
top of it, until it made a huge pile. When 
it was ready to light, I suppose you chil- 
dren think he took a match-box from his 
pocket, got out a match, struck it, and in a 
minute there was a fire." 

Here the children looked as if they 
thought, " Of course that was the way of it." 

But grandma shook her head, and said, 
" No, indeed ! there had never been a match 



66 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

made in those days. But what he did do 
was to take out of his pocket a tinder-box, 
a flint, and a knife. He opened the tinder- 
box, and with the knife he struck the flint 
until a spark of fire went down into the box 
and set the tinder on fire ; then a piece of 
paper, properly folded, was lighted, and that 
lighted a piece of dry wood, and with that 
the whole pile was soon in a fine blaze, 
crackling and snapping and throwing out 
great sparks. 

" In the mean time father had put up a 
shed-like tent, which opened to the fire, 
where we were to sleep ; and when he and 
the man started out to gather evergreen 
twigs we children slipped out from under 
the boat and ran to help them, for by this 
time the rain was over. 

" We filled our arms with the fragrant 
boughs many times and carried them to the 
tent, and then when there were enough we 
helped father make a big bed." 

" That would be a funny bed," said Golden- 
Hair; "how did you make it?" 

" We began at the foot, and put down a 
layer of twigs, with their stems towards the 



WE GO TO NEW SALEM. 6? 

head ; then another layer put the same way, 
the leafy parts covering the stem ends of 
the first one, and so on up to the head ; 
finishing it off there with a lot of small soft 
twigs that did good service for pillows. 

" When it was done it was big enough for 
us all, and was a very much softer and nicer 
bed than you would imagine." 

Here the children nodded their little 
heads and smiled, and Portie said he 
wished he could sleep in such a bed all the 
time. 

" When it came bed-time we lay with our 
feet to the fire: first Sallie and Abba on 
each side of me, then Eber and father, and 
on the outside the man. We were covered 
with blankets, and slept as sound as you do 
now in bed, and very much sounder than 
I do. 

" We stayed there a week before the 
storm abated, and the waves and wind died 
down enough to launch the boat. 

" Sometimes father and the man would 
go out hunting, and bring in squirrels and 
other small game. It amused us children 
very much to see men cooking. I wanted 



68 GRANDMOTHERS STORIES. 

to help them, but they would n't let me do 
very much, for I was n't used to cooking 
out-doors." 

The children looked as if they wished 
they 'd been there to have all that fun, and 
grandma said, " Of course there are a good 
many drawbacks about camping out in the 
woods in April, when the wind is blowing 
cold and it rains every day. There were 
no leaves on the trees, and there were no 
flowers, and the grass had not begun to 
grow ; but, luckily, little children can have 
a good time almost anywhere, if only those 
who are with them are kind to them. 

" Fathers and mothers, in those days, 
though just as good as they are now, did n't 
pet and play with their children as they do 
now. The old rule that children should be 
seen, and not heard, was in full force, and 
they felt great respect and awe for their 
parents. I think it made better children, 
but I don't know. I guess they were not 
so happy," and grandma looked thought- 
fully at the bright faces of the children, and 
said softly, " But it made us older for our 
years." 



WE GO TO NEW SALEM. 69 

Portie said he was glad he did n't have 
to keep still and just be looked at, and that 
made them all laugh. 

" The sail from the camp to New Salem, 
about thirty miles, was accomplished in a 
day, and with no further incidents. We 
were received very kindly by uncle Sam 
and his wife, and they did all they could to 
make us comfortable. 

" I washed the children, and put clean 
clothes on them and myself. It seemed 
good to be clean and in a dry house, to 
sleep in a good bed and eat at a table, 
and to stay in one place for a while after 
our four months' wanderings." 




V^^-S ■'••-. -.."W.-; -JWT. ■::■■■.&. •■..-::•..-."■. - ^1:-- " 




FOUR YEARS IN NEW SALEM. 

NCLE Sam was building at this 
time," said grandma, after each 
one had got into his or her favorite 
position, " a sailing vessel called the Salem 
Packet, to carry passengers and freight from 
Buffalo to Mackinaw and Green Bay. 

" By the first of May she was loaded and 
ready, and one bright morning sailed off 
with uncle Sam and a crew of three men. 
Father went, too, to establish a store at 
Mackinaw, as trade with the Indians and 
soldiers was profitable then as now. 

" We children watched the boat sail out 
of the harbor with heavy hearts, and as she 
grew smaller and smaller in the distance 
Abba and Sallie could not restrain their 
tears. Mother was dead, and now father was 
gone, and would not be back for six months, 
and we felt very lonely and desolate. 

" But Eber and I comforted them as 



FOUR YEARS IN NEW SALEM. 71 

much as we could, and told them that father 
would be back in the fall, and that we must 
all be good and not cry, and not make our 
aunt any more trouble than we could help ; 
and Eber said, ' We '11 have some fun, too ; 
I '11 make a boat, and we '11 go down and sail 
it in the creek ; ' which he really did do, and 
had a great many happy days at that sport." 

" Oh," said the children, " I wish we had 
a creek to sail boats in; a bath-tub is too 
small ; " and they looked for a minute as if 
they had never had any fun in their lives. 

" I helped our aunt about the housework 
and mended the children's clothes," resumed 
grandma, " and helped make new ones for 
us all, and learned everything I could, so 
that I could keep house for father when he 
came back. 

" It does n't seem as if I was ever a little 
girl after my mother died. I was nine years 
old the month she died, and after that, it 
seems to me, I always had the cares of a 
woman on my shoulders. I felt that I must 
attend to the children, that I must see to 
their clothes, both the making and the mend- 
ing, take care of them when they were sick, 



72 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

and see that they were neat and clean and 
behaved well ; and I will say that Eber and 
Abba never disobeyed me but once or twice 
in all their young lives. Sallie thought 
sometimes I was n't but a year older than 
she was, any way, so I had to be more care- 
ful what I told her to do. 

" I have often wondered since how it hap- 
pened to be so, and I think they must have 
been remarkably good children." 

Here the aunties and mammas smiled at 
each other, as much as to say, " We know 
who was the remarkable child." 

" In the fall father came back. We were 
down at the wharf to meet him, and though 
we were exceedingly glad to see him, we 
greeted him in the quiet and dignified way 
children were accustomed to use to their 
parents in those days. He brought us little 
mococks of maple sugar, and pretty bead- 
work that the Indian women made, and 
other things that were useful. I showed 
him what I had done for the children ; and 
I felt the greatest pride and joy when he 
patted my head and called me his good 
little girl. 



FOUR YEARS IN NEW SALEM. 73 

" It paid me for all the care and anxiety I 
had had for the children, and helped drive 
away the continual pain I felt for the loss 
of my mother, that seemed to grow more 
instead of less. I suppose it was because 
the attempt I made to fill her place caused 
me to feel all the more keenly what we had 
lost. I know I could never speak of her 
death until long after I was a grown woman. 

" Uncle Sam and his wife moved up to 
the village to spend the winter, and father 
and we children kept house in their old 
house. I was the housekeeper, of course, 
and I had great pride in having everything 
as father wanted ; but you may be sure I had 
many a heartache before I was able to do 
things as well as mother had done them. 

" In the spring uncle Sam and his wife 
and several families moved to a place on 
the St. Clair River, where uncle Sam had 
bought a large tract of land the year before. 
It was a beautiful peninsula, with the St. 
Clair River on one side of it, and a pretty in- 
land stream, Belle River, on the other side. 

" Across Belle River were a few French 
families, but except these there were no 



74 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

inhabitants for some miles, unless it were 
a few Indians. 

" After uncle Sam and the people he 
took had been there awhile, the place was 
called Yankee Point, because the new set- 
tlers were all Yankees. 

" Father went to Mackinaw in the same 
boat they went in, and he left Abba and me 
to board with the family of Mr. Ford, and 
Sallie and Eber boarded with a Mr. Gilbert. 
The Conneaut creek ran between the two 
places, and in that creek Eber came very 
near being drowned." 

" Oh, tell us about it ! " said Porte and 
Eber B., Jr., with great eagerness. 

"He and Abba were down there sailing 
toy boats, when the very finest one got far- 
ther out into the stream than was antici- 
pated, and Eber waded in after it. But the 
wind had got into the sail just right, and so 
the little boat kept ahead of him, and in his 
eagerness to get it he got over his depth 
before he knew it, and down he went. 

" When he rose to the surface he was far- 
ther from shallow water than when he went 
down, and, not knowing how to swim, after 



FOUR YEARS IN NEW SALEM. 75 

a struggle or two he went down again. He 
sank a third time, and that time did n't rise. 

" But in the mean time Abba was scream- 
ing with all her might that ' Eber was 
drowning ! ' and her screams brought some 
men from a field near by. One of them, 
who was a good swimmer, plunged into 
the water, and after diving several times 
found him lying placidly on the bottom of 
the creek, his little hands clutching the 
weeds that grew there. 

" He brought him up, and they laid him 
across the knees of one of the men, face 
downwards, so that the water he had swal- 
lowed would run out of his mouth, and in a 
little while he began to open his eyes and 
to breathe. 

" We children stood by crying, for when 
they brought him out of the water we 
thought he was surely dead." 

" Were you there, grandma ? " said little 
Emily. 

" Oh, yes ; I had heard the screaming, and 
was there almost as soon as the men were. 

" After that I was very careful to be with 
him when he went to sail his boats, for he 



76 GRANDMOTHERS STORIES. 

would mind me when I told him not to do 
anything ; and I would n't let him go far 
into the water. 

" We had a very pleasant time that sum- 
mer. Old Mr. Ford, with whom Abba and 
I lived, was an odd sort of man, and very 
fond of onions ; he wanted them every day, 
but if they were n't on the table he would n't 
ask for them, and his wife very often forgot 
them ; so every noon I used to put an onion, 
nicely cleaned, at his plate. 

" I had no idea that he knew who did it, 
for children in those days were not praised 
for every little trifle they did. But when 
father came home in the fall and went to 
pay our board, Mr. Ford would n't take any 
pay for mine. He said I was a thought- 
ful little girl, and so good to him, — and 
here he related the onion story, — that he 
did n't want any pay for me." 

Here the mammas looked at the children 
with meaning glances, as if they wished that 
trait of " thoughtfulness for the happiness 
of others " could be impressed upon their 
minds ; and the children looked back with 
smiles, as if they understood it. 



FOUR YEARS IN NEW SALEM. 77 

" Of course that made me feel very 
happy," said grandma. 

" We kept house as usual that winter, 
and the next spring father went to Green 
Bay and stayed a whole year, and we four 
children boarded at a Mr. McNair's. When 
father came back the following year, he 
bought a farm at Ruddville, a little way 
from Conneaut ; but after it was all paid 
for and stocked and we were living on it, 
he found his title was a poor one. 

" The man from whom he had bought it 
had left the country, and the complications 
of the title were such that the only redress 
he had was to sue the State. Father 
thought he could not afford to do that, so 
he abandoned the farm, disposed of the 
stock at a sacrifice, and we went to Spring- 
field in Pennsylvania, where he taught 
school. 

" I felt the loss of the farm very keenly. 
Here, for the first time since mother died, 
we had a home of our own, where father 
intended to stay; here I thought I could 
bring up the children, and make them good 
and industrious; and here, also, would be 



78 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

a permanent home, — no more moving every 
spring and every fall. And so I was bit- 
terly disappointed. 

" But we had a very pleasant time at 
Springfield. There were a good many 
girls and boys to go to school, sons and 
daughters of the farmers who lived in the 
neighborhood. They all had big farms, and 
lived in the homely style of that day. 

" I remember one funny incident that 
happened at that school," and as grandma 
smiled, the children, one and all, wanted to 
know about it. 

" There was a very odd boy — or young 
man he was, for he had got his growth — 
who came to school that winter. He wore a 
pair of leather breeches that were much too 
short for him, and they fitted as tight as a 
drum. They had been wet several times 
and had shrunk, so the wonder was how he 
could get into them at all. He was always 
late, and would come lounging in, and when 
he got to his seat would fall upon it with a 
great thump. 

" The boys thought they would cure him 
of that ; so one morning they fixed a wooden 



FOUR YEARS IN NEW SALEM. 79 

peg in his seat, with the sharp point up, 
and watched for developments. They were 
not long coming, for at the usual hour he 
walked in, slouched lazily along to his seat, 
and dropped into it with his usual grace; 
but he bounded back like a rubber ball, and 
as he slapped the seat of his small-clothes 
he looked around on the convulsed scholars 
with an inexpressibly droll air, and drawled 
out, ' Goll darn ye ! I know ye ! I know 
ye!' 

" It is needless to say that he did n't fall 
down any more on that seat. 

" The next fall father and Eber and I 
went up to Yankee Point to live, leaving 
the two girls in Conneaut, in the care of a 
good woman. I wanted them to go with 
us, but father said I was too young to 
manage growing girls. I did n't think I 
was too young, and I thought it would be 
better for them to be with us ; but as I was 
only thirteen I could n't make much of an 
impression upon father, and we sailed off 
without them. 

" Motherless children have a great many 
trials that those who have mothers know 



80 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

nothing about. Men think they know a 
great deal, but a woman can keep her chil- 
dren together and bring them up better 
if the father dies than the father can if the 
mother dies. I felt the separation from 
them very much. Abba had always slept 
in my arms after mother died, and I cried 
myself to sleep many a night after I left 
them." 




A LONG SHIP-RIDE. 




ARLY in the fall of 1822 father 
and Eber and I sailed away from 
Conneaut, in the Salem Packet, for 
Yankee Point. 

"Sallie and Abba stood upon the dock 
and waved us good-by, and tried not to 
cry ; but I could see, through the tears that 
were rolling down my own face, that they 
were crying. Eber rubbed his eyes with 
his fists, as boys will when they want to cry 
and are determined not to, and, in conse- 
quence, looked red about the eyes and nose, 
and white in the rest of his face. 

"When we could see them no longer I 
went down into the cabin, where father and 
Eber could n't see me, and wept the bitter 
tears of a mother parted from her children. 
No one would believe that a girl of my age 
could have the feelings I had for those 
children. I did n't see how they could get 



82 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

along without me, and I knew I was very 
unhappy without them. 

"After the first paroxysm of grief was 
over, and I thought that I still had Eber 
and father to love and care for, I wiped 
away my tears, washed my face, and went 
up on deck to see what they were doing. 

" Father was sitting on deck reading a 
favorite book, and Eber was talking with 
the sailors, asking them all sorts of ques- 
tions about the sails, the management of 
the ropes, and everything he could think of 
in regard to the ship. Before we got to 
Yankee Point he could steer the boat pretty 
well, knew all the nautical terms, could help 
furl and reef and set the sails, and made 
himself useful and agreeable to every one 
on board. 

" The sailors in those days were not the 
low, swearing fellows that too many of them 
are now, but they were the sons of the 
neighbors, helping a neighbor sail his ship. 
Often they became ship-owners themselves, 
after a time. 

" Of course Eber taught me everything 
he had learned, and we enjoyed this first 



A LONG SHIP-RIDE. 83 

ride in a big ship immensely. We little 
thought that thirty years later he and 
uncle Sam would be the owners of the 
finest fleet of steamers that ever sailed the 
Great Lakes. But so it was." 

Here Golden-Hair looked at Eber and 
Portie as much as to say, " I wonder if you 
will ever be capable, like that." 

" Yes," said little Emily, " but I thought 
uncle Eber had big iron mills." 

" That was still later," said grandma. 
" He established the first rolling-mills in 
the Northwest, and the first Bessemer steel 
manufactory in America; sailed the first 
steamboat on Lake Superior, which he took 
overland three or four miles across the Sault 
Falls Carry, before the great ship canal was 
dug ; and did a great many important first 
things both in commerce and manufactures, 
as well as being the first business man in 
the Northwest for many years of his life. 

" But just at this time his mind was n't 
particularly burdened about being first in 
anything, except making the most of his 
surroundings. He was always merry and 
light-hearted, full of kindly ways, obedient, 



84 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

industrious, truthful, loving, and without a 
single mean trait. 

" I don't say this because he was my 
brother," said grandma with some empha- 
sis, and with eyes that might have flashed 
if anybody contradicted her; "but I say 
it because it is true." 

As the mammas and aunties and the 
children all knew that grandma told the 
truth, from their own knowledge of uncle 
Eber in later life, there was nothing said, 
and as only a look of intense belief was seen 
in all the eyes turned towards grandma, she 
continued : — 

" When we got to Cleveland we went 
ashore and walked about, while the vessel 
was putting off and taking on freight. At 
that time it was a little village you could 
walk all over in an hour; it had about 
a thousand inhabitants, and no one thought 
of its ever being a big city. 

" We also stopped at a place that is now 
called Toledo ; then it consisted of two 
little frontier towns, one on each side of 
the Maumee River. The people who came 
down to the wharf looked lean and pale 



A LONG SHIP-RIDE. 85 

and yellow, and as if they had n't much left 
to live for. 

" The pioneers of Michigan and Ohio 
suffered a great deal from fever and ague. 
I remember father asked one of these sickly 
looking beings if that town was n't a pretty 
unhealthy place ; and how surprised I was 
to hear him say, with some indignation, 
4 It is the healthiest place in the United 
States ! ' 

" Fever and ague used to shake and burn 
these early settlers until they looked like 
ghosts ; but it did not abate the pride they 
had in their new homes, and nothing made 
their eyes flash so quick as to suggest that 
the particular place where they lived was 
not as healthy as it might be. 

" Lake Erie had been a little rough at 
times, and I was not sorry to get into the 
placid waters of the Detroit River. Eber 
and I were never tired of looking at the rip- 
pling water as the vessel glided through it, 
nor at the beautiful shores covered by pri- 
meval forests that had not yet bowed before 
the frontiersman's axe. Everywhere silence 
reigned, — the beautiful silence of Nature 



86 GRANDMOTHERS STORIES. 

not yet subdued under the weary yoke man 
puts upon her. 

" We stopped at Detroit, a little town of 
fifteen hundred people, and walked about 
with father, who told us stories of its strug- 
gles for existence, and the fights for its pos- 
session between the Indians and French 
and English and Americans. Now it lay 
placid and peaceful, not in the least realiz- 
ing the misery it had passed through, nor 
the career of prosperity that lay before it. 

" When we got to the St. Clair flats we 
lay there becalmed for two days, for there 
was neither a tug nor a steam vessel of any 
kind on the Great Lakes. Father and Eber 
and the sailors went duck-hunting, for then, 
as now, the duck knew about the St. Clair 
flats, and we had a great feast as the result 
of their spoils. 

" When we got fairly out on the St. Clair 
River our delight was increased by two 
things : first, that we were near our destina- 
tion ; and second, that it was the widest, 
cleanest, deepest, and most beautiful river 
that ever anybody saw. There certainly 
is not so lovely a river in the world as the 



A LONG SHIP-RIDE. 87 

St. Clair; not the storied Rhine, nor the 
winding Ocklawaha, nor the palisaded Hud- 
son can compare with it, in my estimation. 

" I don't think, in all this long journey, 
we met more than three boats as large as 
ours, and the smaller craft were few and 
far between. Occasionally we would see 
an Indian, in his birch-bark canoe, placidly 
fishing. 

" Arrived at Yankee Point, the boat 
stopped at a little wharf, and there the 
whole population was assembled to meet 
her. All the news from the outside world 
came through her, and all the luxuries of 
life they had were brought in her hold ; so 
it was not to be wondered at that every 
man, woman, and child in the place hailed 
her arrival with joy. We lived in this place 
five years, about which I will tell you more 
hereafter." 



YANKEE POINT. 




E went to housekeeping in a log 
house built on the bank of the 
river, where now there is a wharf 
and warehouse. 

" Uncle Sam had built it for himself when 
he first moved to the place, but this year he 
had finished a frame house, the only one in 
the place, and had gone to live in it. I dare 
say you young people think it would be a 
terrible affair to live in a log house, but the 
pioneers of this country were very glad to 
get a good log house to live in. 

" Ours was one of the best in the place. 
It had two large rooms : one the living-room, 
with a great fire-place at one end, where 
we did all our cooking, — for there were no 
stoves in those days ; the whole world cooked 
by fire-places, — and where we ate, and sat 
to sew, and slept too, for there was a big bed 
in one corner, where father and Eber slept. 



YANKEE POINT. 89 

The other room was a bed-room and also a 
store-room, where the flour, meal, and sugar 
were kept, and where also there was a barrel 
of whiskey ; for it was the fashion of those 
times for every one to keep whiskey, and 
drink it too, though my father was a very 
temperate man and Eber never would taste 
it. 

" Yes," continued grandma, "it was a good 
enough house for any one, and I kept it 
perfectly clean ; the floor was white enough 
to eat from, and the deal table was scoured 
until it shone, and every dish and pan glis- 
tened. They did n't look much as they do 
in my kitchen now, where there are two 
servants who have nothing to do but to 
keep things bright. 

" Well," said grandma, with a sigh, " the 
times are different from what they used to 
be." 

The children looked as if they were glad 
of it, but wisely said nothing. 

" The greatest drawback to our happiness 
was sickness; everybody had fever and 
ague, and no one, not even the doctors, 
knew how to cure it. It was before the 



90 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

advance in the methods of making medi- 
cines had begun, and when doses of thirty 
grains of calomel were not uncommon. 

" I was sick one whole year with chills 
and fever, and always when the doctor came 
it was calomel and jalap he prescribed. I 
had grown worse instead of better, and by 
the end of the year was reduced almost to a 
skeleton. I made up my mind, at last, that 
as the medicine did me no good I would n't 
take any more of it ; so the next time Eber 
came with a spoonful of the nasty stuff I 
put my hand over my mouth and turned 
my head away, and would n't take it. 

" He said I 'd die if I did n't, and I re- 
plied, ' I 'd rather die than live the way I 
am living.' When father came in he tried 
to persuade me to take it, but I was firm 
in my resolve never to take any more of it, 
come what would. From that time I began 
to get well, and was very soon up and about 
the house. 

" No one knows what the pioneers of the 
Western States suffered from malaria, bad 
doctors, and worse medicine. Quinine, the 
only specific for the disease, was then un- 



YANKEE POINT. 91 

known. One poor man who lived near 
us was reduced to skin and bone, and of 
course, with calomel and jalap three times 
a day, he could n't have an appetite. Some 
one had told him that if, when the fever 
was at its height, he would go down to the 
river and jump in, the shock to his system 
would break the fever. The poor fellow 
tried it, and it did indeed break the fever 
and him too, for he died in a congestive 
chill a few hours after. 

" Sometimes, during the first years, there 
were hardly enough well people to take care 
of the sick. After I got well I sat up many 
nights with our sick neighbors, and helped 
them in every way I could, for in pioneer 
days everybody knows who is his neigh- 
bor; there is not the doubt about it that 
there is in older settled countries and in 
cities. 

" At the end of two years Sallie came, 
and it was not so lonely for me. 

" When we had been there three years, 
the father of a little two-year-old boy, whose 
mother had just died, wanted us to keep 
the boy for a while until he got settled 



92 GRANDMOTHERS STORIES. 

somewhere. Father said he did n't care, if 
I was willing, and as I was willing he came. 
He was just beginning to talk, and was 
very pretty and attractive, and we loved 
him a great deal. His father was very 
poor and could do nothing for him, and 
we were not rich ourselves, so I made him 
clothes out of our old ones. 

" We kept him two years, and when father 
concluded to take us away on account of 
the unhealthiness of the place he said he 
must send Benny to his father. I begged 
father to keep him. I told him I could 
make clothes for him out of his old ones, 
and that what he ate would n't cost much, 
and if it was necessary I 'd share my food 
with him. 

" Benny cried too, and begged to stay ; 
he said ' Em'ly would make towdys for him 
out of gampa's old ones, and he could eat 
off'm Em'ly's plate, and he would be a 
good boy and work ; ' but father thought he 
could n't stand the extra expense. 

" I have always been sorry," said grand- 
ma, " that we did n't keep him. It would 
have been better for him." 



YANKEE POINT. 93 

" What became of him ? " said one of the 
mammas. 

" He finally got to be a Methodist minis- 
ter, — a very good man, but uncultivated. 
I saw him once, many years afterward, but 
it did n't seem as if he ever could have been 
our little Benny. 

" He got off a good joke on Sallie that 
afforded us a great deal of amusement. 
She came down late to breakfast one morn- 
ing, looking rather unamiable, as people 
who are late to breakfast usually do, and 
she spoke quite sharply to him. He came 
out where Eber and I were busy fixing a 
sail for his new boat, and, holding up his 
tiny forefinger at us, he lisped, with an air 
of great solemnity and caution, ' 'Ook out ! 
'00k out ! Shallie ith ath shpunky ath a 
wat ! ath shpunky ath a wat ! ' he repeated 
with great emphasis. He looked so droll 
that we screamed with laughter, and we 
never ceased to tease Sallie about being 
' shpunky ath a wat.' 

" The sail we were making for that boat 
was the cause of Eber's disobeying me one 
out of the two times he ever did disobey 



94 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

me while we were young. One was when 
he would take some white sugar when I 
did n't want him to." 

" Oh, tell us about that," said Portie. 

" For ordinary purposes we used maple 
sugar, which was made in abundance in the 
neighborhood, but for sickness we had loaf 
sugar, which at that time came in cakes of 
forty or fifty pounds. We always kept this 
kind of sugar, but used it very sparingly for 
company and for sickness, in our own house, 
and for our poorer neighbors who could n't 
afford to buy it. 

" Eber was always very generous and self- 
denying, but this one time he said he was 
going to have a piece of that sugar. I told 
him he couldn't have it, and he replied he 
was almost as old as I was, any way, and he 
would have it; and he did," and grandma 
laughed. "I have often wondered since 
why he minded me, as he always did, except 
these two times ; he must have been a very 
good boy ! " 

" Tell us about the sail, grandma," said 
little Emily. 

" Well, we finished the sail in the even- 



YANKEE POINT. 95 

ing, and Eber made up his mind that in the 
morning he would try it ; and as it was the 
first big sail he had ever owned he was very 
enthusiastic about it. 

" Morning came, but it was very windy 
and the waves were running high, and I 
told him he must not go out until the wind 
died down. After breakfast was over he 
went down to the river, and he made up his 
mind that ' his boat would go in a wind 
like that well enough. Of course Emily 
wouldn't want him to go, — but Emily was 
a girl, anyhow, and what did she know of 
boats ? ' So he came up to the house, got 
his sail, and was making off without saying 
a word to anybody, when I rushed out and 
told him he must not go; he would cer- 
tainly be drowned. 

"' Oh,' he said, 'I guess not; it isn't 
much of a wind, any way.' 

" I implored, I begged, I commanded, him 
not to go, but it was no use. He did n't 
say much, but he walked on, and began to 
fix the sail in the boat ; then he put in the 
rudder, raised the sail, arranged the ropes, 
keeping the sheet rope in his hand, and 



96 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

pushed off. I sat on the bank watching 
him with fear and trembling. 

" It all went very well until he got over 
the channel bank, when a big gust of wind 
came and lurched the boat over ; at the same 
moment a big wave leaped into it, and but 
for Eber's presence of mind the boat cer- 
tainly would have gone over and he would 
have been drowned, for father was away, and 
there was no boat and no man to save him. 

" But he had had some doubts of his own 
in regard to the safety of the experiment, 
and had taken a hatchet with him, and as 
soon as the squall struck the sail he let 
go the sheet rope ; but as that did n't right 
the boat, quick as a thought he seized the 
hatchet, and with a few quick strokes the 
mast and sail fell into the water, the boat 
righted, and he was safe. 

" I believe I cried then, but when he got 
on shore I did n't cry much. I gave him a 
good scolding, which he received with great 
meekness." 

" Did he get back his sail ? " said Portie. 

" Yes ; after the storm was over he found 
it lodged against the bank, not far away." 




THE SAGINAW INDIANS. 




T was in the early summer of 1826, 
for I was seventeen years old when 
this little incident happened," said 
grandma in response to some questions of 
the children. 

" It was training-day, as it was called, and 
every man and boy who was well enough 
and old enough to carry a gun had to go 
to the county seat to be trained in military 
movements. 

" That morning father and Eber and every 
man and boy in the settlement, except a poor 
lame shoemaker, had gone to Port Huron, 
twenty miles away, to the training, and the 
women and children were left alone. But 
no one thought anything of it, for the coun- 
try was at peace, and though there were 
Indians around they were friendly, and we 
had nothing to fear from them. 

" It was a bright and lovely morning when 



98 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

we went down the river bank to see father 
and Eber off. The river shone like a 
mirror, and reflected the trees that over- 
hung its banks so clearly that they looked 
like twin trees growing into its shining 
depths. The robins were singing their 
loudest, and everything was so fresh and 
beautiful and peaceful that I lingered a 
long time dreaming over it. But the cares 
of a housekeeper drove me home after a 
while, and I went into the house to do my 
morning work. 

" I had put the house to rights, and had 
just finished baking my bread, when the 
door suddenly opened, and in poured a 
great number of Indians in full war-paint 
and dress, muskets in their hands and 
knives and tomahawks in their belts. They 
paid no more attention to me than if I 
had been a block of wood, but went to the 
cupboard, and took the bread and cake 
and everything eatable. They drank some 
vinegar there was in a barrel in the corner, 
and then began looking around after some- 
thing in particular, but which they didn't 
find ; finally, one old fellow looked at me 



THE SAGINAW INDIANS. 99 

and said. ' Whiskey ? ' I shook my head, 
and told him we hadn't any. He started 
to open the door into the room where the 
whiskey barrel was, but I stepped ahead of 
him quick, put my hand through the door 
handle, looked him right in the eye, and 
told him that he could not go in there. 

"When they first came in I seized the 
broom, as it was the only weapon left in the 
house, and a woman's weapon at that," said 
grandma, smiling; "and when some of the 
young men tried to pull me away from the 
door I hung on tight with one hand, and 
struck right and left with the broom handle 
as hard as I could strike, hitting an Indian 
at every blow. 

" I knew I might as well die fighting as 
any other way, and that if I could n't keep 
them from the whiskey barrel they would 
get drunk, and then kill every woman and 
child in the place. After a little some of 
the young men made motions as if to strike 
me ; but this old fellow, who seemed to be 
their chief, said in Indian, ' Leave her to 
me. I '11 put her to sleep.' 

" I knew what he meant, for I could un- 



IOO GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

derstand Indian some, but I made up my 
mind that I 'd not let go of that door as 
long as I had life to hold it. 

" Then the old Indian made as if to 
strike me with a stick, but I did n't flinch, 
and kept on looking him right in the eye. 
Then he threw it down on the floor, and 
said, ' Pick it up ! ' 

" I knew that if I stooped he would 
strike me on the back of the head, and that 
I would die without making any outcry ; 
so I shook my head and would not pick 
it up. 

" In the mean time I could hear Sallie 
screaming and crying in the yard, for the 
young Indians were amusing themselves 
beating her with long, slender whips, for no 
other purpose than the fun of hearing her 
scream. But just at that moment she put 
her head in at the door, and I shouted to her, 
1 Sallie, run quick, and tell the men ! ' 

" Now I knew that there were no men 
around but the lame old shoemaker, but I 
said it for a double purpose: one to get 
Sallie away, and the other that the old In- 
dian, who understood a little English, might 



THE SAGINAW INDIANS. ioi 

think there were a good many men around, 
and so go away for fear of them. 

" Sallie ran quick as a flash, and the old 
fellow, who had understood what I said, as I 
expected he would, left me, and began talk- 
ing in a low tone with some of the older 
Indians. They seemed to come to some 
sudden decision, for he gave a word of com- 
mand, and they all left the house as abruptly 
as they had entered it, went down the bank, 
got into their boats, pushed off into the 
river, and were half-way across before Sal- 
lie got back with the news ' that the shoe- 
maker was afraid, and would not come.' " 

" Oh, grandma ! were n't you afraid ? " 
said the children. 

" No ; though I knew they might kill me, 
I did n't seem to have any fear. I remem- 
ber I thought I might just as well be killed 
then as after they got drunk. But after 
they were gone I was so weak and trembled 
so I could not stand up. I had to sit down, 
and I shook like a leaf in the wind for hours 
after. It took me several days to get over 
the nervous depression that followed." 

" Oh, grandma, I think you were awfully 
brave," said Golden-Hair. 



102 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

" No, it was n't bravery," replied grandma 
thoughtfully. " I was afraid they would get 
the whiskey, and then kill everybody." 

" What made them go away so quick ? " 
inquired one of the mammas. 

" You see," said grandma, " these Indians 
were warriors from the Saginaw tribe, who 
were very fierce and warlike ; and they were 
then on their way to Detroit to try and 
release from prison their chief, old Kish- 
kawko, who had a year before killed a man 
in the streets of Detroit. Just in pure wan- 
tonness, without the least provocation, he 
had thrown a tomahawk at a white man who 
was walking peacefully along, and struck 
him down. He had been arrested, tried, and 
condemned to be hanged. 

" The Indians thought it an overwhelm- 
ing disgrace ' to be hung like dogs,' as they 
said, and they determined, if they could n't 
release him, to give him poison. I sup- 
pose the reason they went, when I told Sal- 
lie to run after the men, was that, going for 
the purpose they were, they didn't wish any- 
thing to defeat that purpose. They were 
afraid that if the men came there would be 



THE SAGINAW INDIANS. 103 

a fight, and they would be delayed and per- 
haps stopped altogether." 

" It was lucky," said one of the aunties, 
" that they did n't know there was but one 
man in the place." 

" Yes, indeed ! " cried the children. 

" What became of Kishkawko ? " asked 
one of the mammas. 

" He took poison the morning he was to 
be hanged. They found the white man's 
government too strong for them to rescue 
him, so they gave him the poison." 



TO EMILY WARD, 1826. 

O brave young maid ! I see thee stand, with arm 

Thrust through the iron latchet of the door, 

Facing a hundred foes, with eyes that wore 

The high and holy look that fears no harm 

For self. What stayed their hands ? What did disarm 

Their murd'rous will, and though the hand was raised 

To slay, it dropped supine, dear God be praised ! 

And saved that noble life ? What but the charm 

That brav'ry hath for savage men ! They love 

The lofty mind disdaining life and pain. 

O Heaven-sent girl ! when was thy duty 

Ever with thy will at strife ? Bright the day 

And joyous for thee, and filled with beauty, 

If only those thou lovedst walked in thy way. 

F. B. H., 1889. 



GOING AFTER STRAWBERRIES. 




NE day in June, as soon as dinner 
was over, Sallie, and a young wo- 
man who worked for uncle Sam, 
and uncle Sam's little boy, and I went over 
to the Canada side of St. Clair River to 
gather wild strawberries that grew there in 
great abundance. We crossed the river in 
a row-boat, and when we got on shore we 
pulled the boat high up on the beach, so that 
the waves would not carry it off. 

" We had a gay time filling our pails and 
baskets with the ripe fruit. When we got 
through we were rather tired, and very lei- 
surely took our way to the boat. We did 
not notice that the small boy had gone 
ahead of us. When we were almost to the 
beach he came running back to us, shout- 
ing, ' Boaty ! boaty ! ' 

" I knew in a moment that he had done 
some mischief, and I set my strawberries 



GOING AFTER STRAWBERRIES. 105 

down and ran as hard as I could toward the 
river. Sure enough, he had pushed the boat 
into the water, and she was floating off with 
the current I waded out clear up to my 
neck, but I could not reach her, and as I 
could not swim I had to wade back. 

" By this time the girls and the small boy 
were on the shore, and as I came back they 
set up a dismal wail ; for the boat was gone, 
and here we four were, miles away from 
any habitation, and with a fine prospect of 
spending the night in the woods, where the 
wolves and bears still roamed and occasion- 
ally Indians were seen. 

" We sat in a very melancholy plight, 
the girls crying, the boy looking doleful, 
and I thinking of what we should do. 
There was an island, about a mile below, 
near the Canada shore, and I thought the 
current would carry the boat to that island 
and strand her on its northeastern point; 
but how to get to that point was the ques- 
tion. 

" I looked around the beach, and found 
there w r as drift-wood of logs and some long 
poles that pioneers use in building mud 



106 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

chimneys. I thought that with these we 
could make a raft, if we only had some- 
thing to tie them together with ; but there 
was n't a string a yard long, except those we 
used to hold up our stockings with, as was 
the fashion in those days. 

" But strings or no strings, that raft had 
got to be made, and what were sunbonnets 
and aprons and dresses and skirts for, if in 
an emergency they would n't tie a raft to- 
gether ? 

" I told the girls my plan, and they said 
they did n't believe I ever would get that boat 
again in any such manner ; but they went 
to work with a will, because I wanted them 
to, and because it was the only way to get 
home. After a good deal of hard work a 
raft was completed, tied with the aforesaid 
material. 

" Luckily the fashion of those days pro- 
vided every woman with a long chemise 
that hung down to her ankles, and covered 
her much more as to her neck and arms than 
many a fashionable belle of these times is 
covered by what people are pleased to call 
full dress. 



GOING AFTER STRAWBERRIES. IOJ 

" You may be sure such a raft was a very 
frail affair to sail the waters of the great St. 
Clair River, and Sallie said that ' she knew 
we would be drowned.' It was only large 
enough for two, and Margaret and I went, 
leaving Sallie to take care of the boy. 

" It required a brave heart either to go 
or stay ; for in the distance we could hear 
the occasional howl of a wolf, and on the 
water was a little raft that looked as if it 
might fall to pieces at a moment's notice. 

" The plan was that Margaret and I 
should stand up and pole the raft ; but as 
soon as we got away from the shore Mar- 
garet was afraid to stand up, so she sat 
down and cried, and I did the work. The 
current helped us a good deal, and after a 
time we could see the head of the island. 

" We knew there was an encampment of 
friendly Indians there at that time, fish- 
ing and hunting, but we were not afraid of 
them. 

" By this time the full moon was up, and 
as soon as we could see the island we saw 
all of the Indians down at the shore gazing 
eagerly in our direction. They did n't seem 



108 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES, 

to understand what it was that was coming 
towards them. But as we got nearer and 
nearer, and the bright moonlight shone 
directly on us, and they discovered it was 
only two forlorn girls on a crazy raft, they 
screamed and shouted with laughter. 

" I did n't care for that, for by this time 
I could see our boat, that had stranded 
about where I thought she would. 

" The Indians were very kind to us : the 
men went and got the boat and untied the 
raft, and the women wrung out the clothes 
and took us to a wigwam and helped us 
put ours on ; then they assisted us into the 
boat and put the rest of the wet clothes in, 
and with many friendly grunts and excla- 
mations they pushed our boat out into the 
stream, and we hastened back to Sallie and 
the boy. 

" Here I will say that I have never yet 
seen an Indian treated with kindness but 
what he returned it by equal kindness, and 
he never forgets a favor, as I know from 
experience. 

"Sallie and* the boy were rejoiced when 
we got back, and they dried the tears that 



GOING AFTER STRAWBERRIES. 1 09 

had been plentifully flowing, put on their 
wet clothes, and we started for home. 

"We agreed amongst ourselves that we 
would slip into the house the back way, 
change our clothes, and not tell any one of 
our adventure, and so no one knew it for 
some time. But Margaret had a beau, to 
whom she told the story after a while ; and 
it was such a good story that, man-like, he 
told it to some one else, and so every one 
knew it in a little time, and we were well 
laughed at." 

" I don't see anything so very funny 
about it," said Golden-Hair. 

" Well," said grandma, " I related that 
story, a good many years after, to Mr. Stan- 
ley, famous for his pictures of Indians. We 
were passing the island on a steamer of 
your uncle's, and I was telling him some- 
thing of the early days of St. Clair River 
settlements. He remarked that the inci- 
dent would make a pretty picture. 

" Not long after that he brought me, on 
my sixtieth birthday, that picture," said 
grandma, pointing to one that hung in the 
room. 



IIO GRANDMOTHERS STORIES. 

Here the children all wanted to look at 
it, though they had seen it a hundred times, 
and pointed out to each other, with great 
glee, grandma on the raft, the Indians, and 
other objects of interest, while grandma her- 
self escaped to her writing-table. 




READING GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 




T was many years after the date of 
my last story that this happened," 
said grandma. " Sallie and Abba 
were married, Eber was in business with 
uncle Sam, and father and I were living 
alone on the island of Bois Blanc. It was 
a very lonely life we led there. 

" There were no inhabitants except one 
old Frenchman and his Indian wife, who 
worked for father. The nearest white peo- 
ple were at Mackinaw, but that was twelve 
miles away, across the straits, that were 
heaped with snow and ice-drifts all the win- 
ter, which made it a difficult and unsafe 
road to travel. 

" Once a month we received letters from 
the outer world, that father had to go to 
Mackinaw to get. For five long months 
we were snow and winter bound, not see- 
ing any familiar faces but those at home. 



112 GRANDMOTHERS STORIES. 

" When the ice did finally break up, late 
in the spring, and the first boat came up 
and close off shore, you may be sure it 
was welcomed with joy ; for uncle Sam and 
Eber's boat was sure to be the first, and 
Eber would come in his brisk, breezy way 
and tell us news from civilization, of him- 
self, of Abba and Sallie and the children, 
and it seemed to renew life within us, and 
give us something to live for. 

" Most of the time at Bois Blanc we had 
children with us, but this year of 1841 we 
had been disappointed in not having Sal- 
lie's eldest daughter. After promising to 
let us have her, her father had finally con- 
cluded he could n't spare her yet ; she might 
come when she got older. 

" I don't know how we could have en- 
dured the loneliness but for books and 
papers. After the work was done I would 
read, and in the long winter nights father 
and I would sit by the big blazing fire- 
place and read and read. 

" Besides the books we had and the pa- 
pers we took, father used to borrow books 
and magazines of a friend of his in Mack- 



READING GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 1 1 3 

inaw ; amongst these was the ' North Ameri- 
can Review,' a new periodical at that time. 

" I became so deeply interested in the 
reviews of German philosophy that I longed 
to read the books they talked about. Every 
night, after I went to bed, I would think 
over what the authors had written on the 
subject, and wish I could read the originals. 

" But how could I ? I could not even 
buy the books ; and if I bought them I 
could not read them, for I did not know 
a word of German. 

" But all things are possible to the long- 
ing and ardent soul ; and after a while my 
prayers for knowledge were answered in a 
most extraordinary way. 

" I will say right here that I do not and 
never have believed in what is ordinarily 
called Spiritualism ; but what I am going to 
tell as truly happened as that I live and sit 
here to tell it. 

" One night, after having been more de- 
pressed than usual by my lack of means 
for learning, and by my intense desire for 
this particular knowledge of German philos- 
ophy, I fell asleep. 



114 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

" I could n't have been asleep long when 
it seemed to me I was reading just what 
I wanted to. The book was before me ; I 
was holding it. The text was German, yet 
I understood it. The joy of it woke me up, 
and I could have wept for disappointment 
that I had not read more. I got up and 
looked out of the window. The moon was 
shining full on the white snow, and the 
evergreen trees looked dark and lovely 
against all that brightness. As I looked 
the disappointment passed away, and I felt 
an indescribable sense of exhilaration ; a 
keener knowledge of life and its meanings 
rose up within me, and a heart-felt but un- 
spoken prayer to the good Father in heaven 
welled up from my soul. 

" I lay down again, and fell asleep, and 
immediately began to read the same book. 
This time I did not wake up, but read all 
the rest of the night. 

" In the morning, when I woke, I felt so 
rejoiced at what had happened, and so in 
hopes that I would be permitted to read 
again that night, that the day went by like 
a robin's song. 



READING GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 1 1 5 

" I thought over what I had read, and 
tried to fix it in my memory, and I prayed 
that God would bless me in this one way, 
if He never gave me anything more. 

" That night, as I looked out on the peace- 
ful stars before I retired, I again felt that 
calmness of soul and greatness of thought 
that we have so seldom in our lives. It is, 
indeed, the spirit triumphing over the flesh 
for a few brief moments. 

" As soon as I fell asleep I began the 
book where I had left off, and again read 
all the night. 

" After that the winter was no longer 
dreary or lonely, for every night I would 
read, and in the morning wake up refreshed 
and exhilarated. Any time during that 
winter I could have written out in the 
morning what I read at night. 

" It certainly was the happiest winter I 
ever spent, and what I read made a very 
deep impression on my mind and exerted a 
strong influence on my whole life." 



SAVING THE FRENCHMAN'S LIFE. 




ATHER and I were sitting by a 
roaring fire," said grandma, while 
the children calmly hugged their 
dolls, " one bitter-cold night in February. 
We were both reading, and were very 
much interested in what we were reading. 

" Donna Maria, the cat, purred by my 
side, while Mars and Rover stretched them- 
selves between us, and lazily watched the 
fire and our faces, or dozed off with one eye 
open. 

" Outside everything was perfectly quiet 
and still ; there was no wind, and all nature 
appeared to be sleeping. 

" Suddenly father raised his head, and 
said, ' Did you hear that cry ? ' 

" I said, * No ; ' then we both listened. Soon 
a wailing cry came up ; it seemed from far 
away. Father got up and opened the door ; 
again it came distinctly, and again, — and 



SAVING THE FRENCHMAN'S LIFE. 117 

father said, ' Some one has fallen into one 
of the air-holes in the ice, and cannot get 
out; we must go and see if we can save 
him.' 

" So we put on our warm wraps, and 
while father got a coil of rope, the axe, and 
two stout walking-sticks, I got some brandy 
and a woolen blanket, so that if we got him 
out of the water, we would have something 
to wrap around him and a stimulant to give 
him. 

" When we got outside the cries came 
quick and sharp, and father gave several 
loud and ringing halloos, so that the man, 
or whoever it might be, would know that 
some one was coming to his rescue. 

" I took one of the walking-sticks, and 
following as near as we could the direction 
of the cries we started. 

" Upon getting outside of our own grounds 
we went into a forest full of underbrush and 
big stones, with three feet of snow covering 
them, and no pathway. 

11 Luckily the bright, round, full moon 
was just rising, the stars shone with the 
clear white brilliancy peculiar to north- 



Il8 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

ern latitudes, and the white snow, that 
covered everything, reflected back their 
light, so that we could see our way ahead 
very well; but we could not see through 
the snow to pick out a good place for our 
feet, so we went laboring and stumbling 
along as best we could. 

" Mars had followed us to see if he could 
be of any help, but Rover, after taking a 
sniff of the cold air, had dropped himself 
down before the fire again. 

" The cries were repeated occasionally, 
and each time father would return an an- 
swering halloo. Often we would come to 
heavy drifts that it was useless to try to 
walk around, and almost impossible to walk 
over ; so by the time we reached the bank 
of the lake, which was two miles away, the 
cries of the poor fellow were getting pretty 
weak. 

" Here father shouted to him to keep up 
courage, for we would soon be there. Walk- 
ing on the ice was much easier, and we 
went over the half mile that lay between us 
in comparatively quick time. 

" But when we got where the poor fellow 



SAVING THE FRENCHMAN'S LIFE. 1 19 

was we found it would be a difficult task to 
get him out ; for around an air-hole the ice 
is always thin, being worn by the action of 
the water, and the man in his attempts to 
get out had broken it at every effort. 

" Father told him not to be frightened, but 
to do just what he said, and he would save 
him. First he threw him one end of the 
rope made into a noose, and told him to 
put it over his head and under his arms. 
With the axe he had brought he had cut 
down a couple of small saplings just before 
he got to the lake, and these he put down 
on the ice, with their heaviest ends near 
the man ; then, taking hold of the other 
end of the rope, he directed me to steady 
the saplings, and told the man to take 
hold of the ends near him, and to climb 
while he would pull. 

" After several efforts and failures father 
told him that it was his only hope for life ; 
that he must use all his strength, or he 
would never get out. Then, with one su- 
preme effort of climbing and pulling, we 
got him out of the water and into a safe 
place. 



120 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

" The moment it was done he fell over 
completely insensible. We poured some 
brandy down his throat, and carried him to 
the bank of the lake, where father built a 
fire; and we warmed him and dried him 
as well as we could, and warmed ourselves 
too, for by this time we were pretty cold 
and somewhat wet. Then we wrapped him 
in the dry blanket I had brought, and father 
took him on his back and carried him home, 
while I followed with the rope and axe. 

" It was lucky the man was a little fellow, 
or father never could have got him home. 
As it was, it was three o'clock in the morn- 
ing before we reached that welcome haven." 

" But who was the man ? " asked the chil- 
dren. 

" Oh," said grandma, " that is the worst 
part of it : he was a miserable, drunken 
Frenchman, who beat his wife and abused 
his children, and who ought to have 
drowned. He had been to Mackinaw and 
got drunk, and so fell into the air-hole. 

" I have often thought it was a misfor- 
tune we happened to hear him." 



THE FALL OF THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 




T was a wild night when the light- 



house fell," said grandma, as she 
picked up a child's stocking she 
was knitting. " Father had gone over to 
Mackinaw two days before, intending to 
come back the day he went; but a storm 
had arisen that prevented his getting back, 
and instead of decreasing it had increased, 
until in the afternoon it was blowing a per- 
fect gale. 

" The light-house had originally been 
placed too near the water, and the en- 
croachment made by the winds and the 
waves, since it was built, had brought it 
much nearer, so that now every heavy storm 
was full of peril for the old light-house. 

" My father had long anticipated the day 
when some extra heavy storm would sweep 
the waters around its foundation, loosen it, 
and beat its stanch tower until it should 
fall ; and now that day had come. 



122 GRANDMOTHERS STORIES. 

" Bolivar and I were alone in the house, 
and there was no one on the island but the 
Frenchman, who was a great coward, and 
his Indian wife. 

" Our house was very near to the light- 
house, — so near that if it should fall a 
certain way it would fall upon the roof, — 
which made it a very unsafe shelter for us. 

" It was a day of great anxiety ; for if the 
light-house should be blown down, its great 
light would be put out, and I shuddered 
to think of what might happen to the vessels 
and their crews and passengers. 

" And Eber was on the lake ; and what 
if his boat, storm-driven, should look for 
that friendly light and not find it? My 
heart was like lead as I looked out upon 
the boiling waves, and the roaring wind, 
and the driving clouds, and thought of him. 
So I would not take down the lamps until 
the very last moment. 

" Early in the forenoon I had seen that 
the water surrounded the building, and 
later on, as the storm increased in violence, 
every great wave would dash itself to foam 
against its brawny sides. 



THE FALL OF THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 1 23 

" About five o'clock I saw that if I was 
to save the lamps and the great reflectors I 
must begin at once. So putting a warm 
hood on my head to protect it from the 
rain, I started, first telling Bolivar not to 
stir from the house, but to stand at the 
window and watch for me. 

" The poor child burst into tears and 
begged me not to go, but I thought it was 
my duty to save the government property. 

" I had no sooner got out of the house 
than the wind, with a sudden dash, nearly 
took me off my feet, the rain half blinded me, 
and the spray wet me through ; but I ran 
quickly, and in a moment was in the light- 
house, climbing its hundred and fifty steep 
steps with all the speed I could. When I 
reached the top what a magnificent sight 
met my gaze ! 

" Whoever has stood on a perilous height, 
and seen the mad waters leap and roar and 
dash with all their mighty force against the 
frail structure that supported him, can im- 
agine the wild exaltation of soul that filled 
me through and through to the exclusion 
of all fear. 



124 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

" It seemed as if then, indeed, God, in his 
majesty, was sweeping the earth and the 
seas, and I felt that I also was part of the 
great universe that existed under that aw- 
ful power. 

" I had but little time, however, to in- 
dulge myself in these thoughts, for every 
wave made the whole tower reel. It took 
all my strength to carry those great lamps 
and reflectors down the winding stairs ; 
and sometimes when I would stop to take 
breath, and would hear the beat of the 
waters and feel the shock it gave the tower, 
it would give me a momentary spasm of 
terror ; but it would be but momentary, 
for my work must be done, and I had no 
time for fear. 

" I think I climbed those stairs five times 
before I got everything movable down, and 
each time Bolivar would implore me, with 
tears streaming from his eyes, not to go 
again, — that I would surely be killed." 

" Oh, grandma! " said one of the aunties, 
" I don't see how you dared to risk your 
life in that way." 

"Oh," said grandma, "you see I wasn't 



THE FALL OF THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 1 25 

hurt. When people are doing their duty 
they are not apt to come to much harm." 

The children looked at each other, as if 
they could see that grandma did right, but 
that it was an awful thing to do. 

" Well," pursued grandma, " after I had 
got everything down I changed my wet 
clothes for dry ones, and we ate our supper, 
and then took our places by the window to 
watch for the light-house to fall. 

" I told Bolivar that as soon as I said the 
word we were to leave the house and go 
back into the woods, and that when the 
time came he was not to speak one word, 
but hang on to my hand tight and follow 
me. He said he would. 

" We had not long to wait. The night 
had come ; the rain had ceased, and the 
moon gave such light as scurrying and 
wildly driven clouds would permit. Sud- 
denly we saw a long zigzag line run from 
the tower's base to its top. I said to Bol- 
ivar, ' Put on your overcoat and hat,' and 
I put on my warm shawl and hood. Still 
we stood by the window ; another line 
shot up and around, and the tower tottered. 



126 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

" ' Now,' said I, * Bolivar, come ! ' He took 
my hand, and we went out the back way, 
shutting the doors behind us, and ran for 
the woods, a few rods off. 

" We had scarcely got there when, with 
one mighty crash, down went the huge pile 
of masonry, and the waves washed over the 
place where the light-house once stood. 

" We could see that the house had not 
been injured ; so with thankful hearts we 
went back, and Bolivar was soon in bed and 
asleep. 

" But I could not sleep for thinking of 
the ships that were in peril, and especially 
of Eber; and tears that I could not restrain 
wet my pillow that night and succeeding 
nights." 

" Was any one lost ? " inquired Portie. 

" Oh, yes," said grandma ; " it was one of 
the most awful storms ever known on the 
lakes, and many ships went down and many 
lives were lost ; but no one was lost near 
Bois Blanc, or that I knew personally. 

" When father got back he was glad to 
find us alive ; for he had been afraid from 
the first that the light-house would fall." 



AN EXHORTATION TO ECONOMY. 




OW," said grandma, "you children 
know nothing of economy. Oh, 
yes, I know you think you do," as 
they looked up in amazement, " and you are 
good children, but you can't know anything 
of the economy I had to use. 

" I remember once, when I was living at 
Bois Blanc, I went down to Pennsylvania 
and New York to visit my sisters, and 
stopped at Conneaut to see old friends. 

" When going down on the boat some 
one had some very fine large peaches to 
sell. They were a great temptation, for I 
had n't seen any peaches for several years, 
and I was very fond of fruit of all kinds, 
and Bois Blanc was so cold and bleak we 
could raise scarcely any. 

" But when I found that I would have 
to pay twenty-five cents for two peaches I 
hesitated. 



128 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

" No, I said to myself, I won't do that ; 
twenty-five cents is too much to pay for two 
peaches, simply to gratify my appetite. I 
may need that money before I get home 
again. 

"And sure enough I did. For when I 
was in Conneaut, one morning, I met a little 
girl in the street who was crying ; the tears 
rolling down her cheeks in spite of her 
efforts to prevent them. 

" I said to her, ' My little girl, what are 
you crying about ? ' 

" Then she burst into a flood of tears, but 
after a little managed to sob out * that she 
could n't go to school any more because she 
had n't a spelling-book.' 

" ' How much would a spelling-book cost ? ' 
I said. 

" ' Twenty-five cents, but mother is so poor 
she cannot buy me one.' 

" There, I said to myself, I am glad I 
did n't buy those peaches, for I have still 
got that money in my pocket, and it will 
buy her a spelling-book. 

" But I said to her, * If you will go with me 
where a spelling-book can be bought, I '11 



AN EXHORTATION TO ECONOMY. 129 

get one for you/ So she wiped her eyes, 
and took me to a little store not far away, 
where it was soon bought, and she went 
joyfully off to school. 

" So you see that if I had not been eco- 
nomical and saved my money I could not 
have made that little girl happy." 

The children looked sedate over this 
story, evidently thinking of the money they 
spent for candies, and of the books they did 
not buy for poor little girls. 

But the mammas and aunties smiled a 
smile of satisfaction at having such a 
grandma, but knowing well that it was a 
rare case of economy. 




GRANDMA'S CHILDREN. 




AY, grandma, " said Golden-Hair, 
" how many children did you bring 
up?" 

" Oh," said grandma, " let me see ; I 've 
forgotten," and she began to count on her 
fingers, and you could hear her murmur, 
" Benny, Laura, Ada, Bolivar — um — um 
— um — m — m — Well, fourteen or fif- 
teen, I guess." 

"Tell us about them all," said little 
Emily. 

" Oh, do ! " pleaded the other children. 

Now I have a confession to make that is 
abhorrent to my soul, and that is that in 
the usual acceptation of the word grandma 
is n't grandma at all, though in the bona 
fide sense of the word she is a hundred 
times more grandma than any other grand- 
ma I ever knew. 

I knew a little girl who used to call her 



GRANDMA'S CHILDREN. 131 

own grandma just plain grandma, but this 
grandma I am writing about she always 
called good grandma, and that was just ex- 
actly the adjective that suited. 

The children did n't find it out for a long 
time, and when some officious person told 
them they were in a great rage, and would 
n't believe it; and grandma herself was 
wroth when she heard they knew, and 
wished that some people would mind their 
own business. 

I can myself remember that when these 
children's mammas were little girls, and 
grandma was called aunt Emily by every- 
body, the real little nieces and nephews 
could n't make the other children any mad- 
der than by telling them that aunt Emily 
was their aunt, and wasn't aunt at all to 
the others. 

But if aunt Emily herself was appealed 
to, she would say that she was aunt to all 
good children. 

So, being aunt, you know, to the mam- 
mas, she had to be grand-aunt to the mam- 
mas' children, and that is all there is of it. 
But that is more than was desirable. 



132 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

However, they are all used to it now, 
and don't care a fig for any other kind of 
grandma, because, you see, they don't re- 
member any of them. 

" Well," said one of the aunties, " who was 
the first one you took ? " 

" Little Benny," said grandma, " and I 
have told you about him. The next one 
was a little two-year-old girl whose father 
had deserted her mother, and the mother 
was too feeble to get a living for them both ; 
so I took her, thinking I would keep her 
until some one wanted to adopt her. But 
when, two years after, a man and his wife 
did want her, I was not willing to give her 
up, and the little thing loved me so she 
did n't want to go. 

" But without my knowledge they went 
before the judge of probate and made oath 
that they had property, and wanted to adopt 
the child and bring her up as their own ; 
and without hearing any evidence on the 
other side the judge gave them legal author- 
ity to take her. So they came with their 
legal papers and took her. 

" The poor little girl clung to me and 



GRANDMA'S CHILDREN. 133 

cried bitterly, and I cried too ; but I thought 
I had to let her go. I was young, and did 
n't know I might have gone to the judge 
and got him to reverse his decision." 

" Was she pretty ? " said Golden-Hair. 

" Yes," returned grandma, " she was as 
pretty as a peach, with blue eyes and red 
cheeks and yellow hair, and she was as good 
as she was pretty. 

11 She did n't have a pleasant life with 
those people, for as soon as she was old 
enough they made a drudge of her. After 
a while they moved away, and I never knew 
what became of her," and grandma sighed 
and looked out of the window. 

After a long pause some one said, " Who 
was the next one ? " 

" The next one was a young English girl, 
about twelve, whose mother had died and 
been buried at sea. Her father came to 
Conneaut, poor, with a large family of chil- 
dren. I felt very sorry for them all, and 
especially this little girl, for I remembered 
how unhappy I was when my mother died. 
So I took her, and sent her to school until 
she was herself old enough to teach. 



134 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

" She is an old lady now. She writes to 
me occasionally, and just a few days ago I 
received this letter, which shows that there 
is gratitude in the world." 

Grandma felt in a very capacious pocket, 
and finally she began to pull out one thing 
after another: namely, eight letters, three 
handkerchiefs, five pieces of string, ten 
packages of flower seeds, some children's 
toys, a little candy, that was immediately 
distributed amongst the children, and a few 
nuts and raisins, that went the same way; 
but she did n't find the letter she wanted. 

" Well," said grandma, " this is what she 
said : * I 've got your picture, and I often 
look at it and shed tears over it, and pray 
— for, aunt Emily, I still pray — that if we 
never meet again on earth we may meet in 
heaven. You took me, a poor, friendless, 
ignorant girl, and fed and clothed and 
schooled and made a woman of me, and 
daily I ask God to bless you.' She was a 
good girl," said grandma, " and I was always 
glad I took her." 

The children stopped munching candy, 
the letter had so impressed them, and there 



GRANDMA'S CHILDREN. 135 

was a pause, when some one spoke up and 
said, " Tell us about that funny old captain 
that was here the other day ! " 

" Well," replied grandma, " it was at this 
same time I met him, a ragged, hungry lit- 
tle boy, crying in the street, without a place 
to shelter him. I asked him what he was 
crying about, and when he told me I had 
to go and buy him some shoes and clothes, 
though I was not very rich myself, for I was 
teaching school and getting two whole dol- 
lars a week, — which was high wages in 
those times, let me tell you. 

" I found a place for him where he could 
work for his board and go to school, and he 
told me the other day that if there was any 
good in him, it came from my influence 
over him that winter. 

" The next spring I got him a place on 
Captain Shook's boat, and I don't remem- 
ber ever seeing him again until a few days 
ago." 

"Tell the children," said one of the 
aunties, " about the letters you got the 
other day, and then we '11 let you go on to 
the children you wholly brought up." 



136 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

Grandma got that letter out of her pocket, 
and after looking it over proceeded to read 
a few extracts, which were as follows : — 

" ' Aunt Emily took up a poor boy thirty- 
five years ago, who was earning sixteen dol- 
lars per month, and how she has stuck to 
him from that day to this ! What would 
have become of the boy or his family had 
not aunt Emily lifted him up? But for 
her moral plane and its influence on me I 
should almost be afraid to leave this world ; 

as it is, I am not. M told me that the 

very first letter he wrote in the Postmaster- 
General's office was one to aunt Emily. 
Well he might, — aunt Emily made him 
Postmaster-General. Meantime, remember 
now and always that on this earth, beyond 
his wife and children, there is no one so 
dear to him as aunt Emily.' " 

Though the children didn't understand 
all of this, the grown-up people did, and one 
of them remarked that here was another 
case where gratitude was not wanting. 

"Yes," said grandma, "this is a pretty 
good world, after all. The people that I 
have been good to have almost always ap- 



GRANDMA'S CHILDREN. 137 

predated it. I Ve many other letters that I 
could show you, but I 've laid them away 
so carefully that it would take me some time 
to find them ; and after all said and done, I 
believe I was to tell about the children I 
had brought up." 

" Yes," put in one of the aunties, " but we 
wanted to know about the children you 
pretty near brought up, too; and as they 
came first, we wanted to hear of them first." 

In the mean time I overheard one of 
the mammas saying to one of the chil- 
dren, " But that is n't half — or rather a 
hundredth part — of the people grandma 
has helped. I know a millionaire and presi- 
dent of a big railroad who says that but for 
aunt Emily he would have been a poor 
plodder all his days; and another million- 
aire and business man, who, though he has 
been ungrateful to her, would not have 
amounted to much if she had not sent him 
to school a year, and got him a place in her 
brother's employ ; and a young doctor whom 
she helped through college, and who bids 
fair to shine in the profession ; and hosts of 
others. But grandma is waiting." 



138 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

Here grandma looked up, and remarked, 
" What is that you are saying ? " 

" Oh, nothing much," said the mamma ; 
" only supplementing your story a little." 

"Oh!" said grandma. "Well, Bolivar, 
Laura, and Ada were the first three chil- 
dren that came to me and stayed until they 
married or died. 

" Bolivar was the son of old friends who 
had died, and what little property they had 
disappeared amongst creditors, and the chil- 
dren were left to take care of themselves. 
Bolivar had been bound out to a man who 
treated him badly, and when I saw him, 
ragged, dirty, and half starved, I told father 
I 'd like to take that boy. 

"We were living at Bois Blanc at that 
time, and father thought it would be a good 
thing to have a boy of ten about the house ; 
so we took him. 

" About the same time a little cousin of 
mine, whose health was rather delicate, came 
to spend the winter with me, to see if the 
clear air of the upper lakes would not re- 
store it. We grew so fond of each other, 
and she became so well, that she lived with 



GRANDMA'S CHILDREN, 139 

me always after that, — or rather until she 
was married. 

" Sallie's eldest daughter came to stay 
with me awhile, and as her mother's health 
was delicate, and she died a few years after, 
she too lived with me until she was mar- 
ried. 

" So after the loneliness of the first few 
years at Bois Blanc I had three children to 
care for ; and as there were no schools on 
the island, I had to educate them also, and 
our time passed away pleasantly in study, 
work, and play, 

" Bolivar and Laura were very near of an 
age, and they were companions for each 
other ; but Ada was four or five years 
younger, and was rather lonely, for she had 
left at her father's home three little sisters 
and a brother. 

" I remember I made her a great big doll, 
as large as a baby, and as I could n't get a 
china head for it, I painted a face on the 
cloth head, dressed it throughout in clothes 
that could be taken off and put on, and after 
it was all done I showed it to her for the 
first time, and asked her if she would like 
that dollie. 



140 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

" Her face beamed with delight. She 
took it, looked at its face and its clothes, 
and then she hugged it hard, kissed it a 
dozen times, and finally burst into a passion 
of tears, holding her dollie close to her 
heart. 

" I took her in my arms and comforted 
her, and we talked a long time about the 
dear ones at home, and I told her we should 
go and see them some day. But always 
after that her dollie was the great delight of 
her heart, and she would dress and undress 
it, and put it to sleep, and treat it in every 
way as if she was a grown-up woman and 
the dollie was her child. 

" It was a fine place to bring up children ; 
their cheeks were like roses, and they grew 
and thrived like the evergreen trees. 

" Ada had been with me three years, and 
by this time father and I had gone to New- 
port to live, when Sallie came to us for a 
few months with Florence, a little mite of a 
girl." 

" That was mamma," said Portie, and the 
children looked at her as if they could n't 
imagine her a little girl. 



GRANDMA'S CHILDREN. 141 

" Yes," said grandma, " that was mamma. 
A few months after a little boy was born, 
and as Sallie was never well enough to take 
care of her children, after that I kept Flor- 
ence and the baby. So then, you see, I had 
five children. 

" But I lost two of them shortly after by 
death," and grandma drew a long sigh. 

" The baby was a beautiful child, with 
great blue eyes and golden hair, and I loved 
him as if he was my very own. He died 
when he was a year old, and in his last sick- 
ness, which was a long one, he wanted no 
one to hold him or care for him but me. 

" I had a great deal to do that summer. 
Bolivar was sick with his last illness, and 
father had a long tedious illness, and my 
hands and my heart were full of work and 
care. 

" I had been sitting up every night for 
weeks, but this particular night Eber said I 
should not sit up, I must sleep ; for if I did 
not sleep I would be sick, and then who 
would take care of the sick ones ? So some 
one took the baby, and I went up-stairs to 
try to sleep. 



I42 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

" But I could not sleep ; the moans of 
that dear child rang in my ears, and if I fell 
into a nap I would wake right up again. 
Finally I could stand it no longer. I got 
up and took the baby, and told the watchers 
to go to bed. 

" I saw, as soon as I looked at the child, 
that life was almost over for him. He 
seemed comforted and soothed as soon as 
I took him, and gazed at me with a look of 
love that almost broke my heart. 

" About twelve o'clock the change came, 
and without a struggle his dear spirit took 
its flight. When the breath had ceased I 
closed his eyes, and stooping over gently 
kissed the sweet lips. As I did so the tears 
that streamed from my eyes bathed his face, 
and I sobbed aloud. 

" Then those heavenly blue eyes opened, 
and he gave me such a look of love and 
peace and joy as if he would say, ' Auntie, do 
not mourn for me ; I have gone from pain 
to happiness, from death to life, and I love 
you always ; ' then they closed again. 

" Oh," said grandma, " I have always 
thought he came back to comfort me, for a 



GRANDMA'S CHILDREN. 143 

great peace came into my heart, and I knew 
1 that it was well with the child.' " 

The children looked awe - stricken at 
grandma as she wiped the tears from her 
eyes. 

" Not many months after that Bolivar 
died, and though I felt his loss keenly, I did 
not feel it as I did the baby's. 

" I don't know, but it does n't seem to me 
that any mother could love her child more 
than I did that one." 

Here grandma looked so worn and tired 
out that the mammas sent the children out 
to play, while grandma leaned her head upon 
her hand and seemed lost in thought. 



GRANDMA'S CHILDREN {Concluded). 




HE next day the children were un- 
usually eager for the rest of the 
story, and as Nellie and Johnnie 
and Pamelia, children from a distance, were 
spending a week or two with grandma, and 
Eber and Clara and Mabel were over from 
uncle Eber's house, and Clarence and 
Frank, little Emily's older brothers, were 
there, there was great confusion at first 
as to where they should all sit. But that 
being arranged satisfactorily, grandma ad- 
justed her spectacles and laid down her pen, 
settled herself in her easy-chair, and con- 
tinued : — 

" About four years after this Laura was 
married and went to Brooklyn to live, and so 
I had but two children left out of the five, 
— Ada and Florence. That very year their 
father died, and the four little children that 
had stayed with him were alone. 



GRANDMA'S CHILDREN. 145 

"I wanted to take them all, but their 
aunts and uncles on their father's side 
wanted to keep them themselves. After 
a while I got the youngest one by process 
of law, and Florence and I went down to 
Pennsylvania to bring her home ; and very 
proud I was of both of them." 

Here the children looked around to see 
which auntie that was, and straightway 
guessed auntie Frank. 

" Yes," said grandma, " that is the one ; 
she had blue eyes, and Florence had black 
eyes, and they both had cheeks like roses. I 
thought nobody had any prettier little girls 
than I had. I used to dress them just alike, 
and as they were very near of a size people 
would take them for twins. 

" They were called auntie's ' little girls ' 
by everybody, until they got to be young 
ladies and long after, in distinction from 
their older sisters, who, when they were a 
little older, came to me of their own accord. 
So again I had five children, Sallie's daugh- 
ters. 

" The last one had hardly time to get 
settled when my sister Abba died, leaving 



I46 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

an infant son and four other children, and 
I took them all. So now I had ten chil- 
dren of my own." 

" Yes," said one of the aunties, " besides 
relays of children from everywhere. I can 
remember eight other children, who at dif- 
ferent times stayed a year or so at our house 
and went to school. After we got older we 
thought it was a great bother, and we used 
to say amongst ourselves that auntie kept a 
free hotel ; though we never mentioned to 
auntie that we did n't approve of so much 
promiscuous charity." 

It was aunt Frank who said that; she 
always would say those things when she 
happened to think of them ; but what aunt 
Mollie could n't say on the subject was n't 
worth saying. 

" Well," resumed grandma, " that baby 
boy was the delight of all our hearts, and 
he was petted and loved by everybody. His 
name was Orville." 

" Oh, uncle Orville ! " cried the children. 
" Was he that baby ? " 

" Yes," said grandma, " but I used to call 
him 'auntie's rosebud,' for he was a real 



GRANDMA'S CHILDREN. 147 

rosebud of a baby ; and when he got to be 
three or four years old and wore a Scotch 
cap, as was the fashion in those days, one of 
the girls made him a velvet cap, and em- 
broidered ' Auntie's Rosebud ' on it." 

" Yes," said Orville, who had come in 
during the latter part of the story, "and if 
I knew the girl that did it, I 'd shake her out 
of her boots. I had more fights about that 
than a few, for when I got to be a great 
big homely freckled boy, the street boys 
would shout, ' There 's auntie's rosebud ! ' 
wherever I appeared, until I had to fight 
them to make them shut up their mouths." 

Here they all laughed, and the doctor 
— for baby Orville is a dignified doctor 
now, and his freckles have disappeared — 
laughed too, at the recollection. 

" There was n't any school in Newport, at 
that time, but the common district school," 
resumed grandma ; " so your uncle Eber 
built a school-house, and we hired a teacher, 
so that the children could be educated at 
home. Any of the village children could go 
by paying a small tuition fee, and here the 
children got the most of their education." 



148 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

" Oh, grandma," said one of the mammas, 
" I believe we could tell better stories about 
that school than you can." 

" I dare say," said grandma ; " but as the 
teacher was the head of the school, and I 
was the head of the teacher, I had a great 
deal to do about it, and very little of impor- 
tance occurred that I did n't know about. 

" The school-house had a finer room for 
the children to sit in than any I ever saw. 
It was arched, fifteen feet high at the sides, 
the centre of the arch being much higher, 
with very large windows, which gave plenty 
of ventilation. It was called the academy, 
for academical studies were pursued there, 
and there was always a college graduate as 
teacher." 

" Yes," said one of the aunties, " we stud- 
ied chemistry, astronomy, physiology, phi- 
losophy, and Latin, besides all the common 
branches; we had charts for everything, 
and that was before the day when charts 
were common ; and I learned every bone and 
muscle in the human body before I was thir- 
teen, and I can remember one of them." 

" What is it ? " cried the children. 



GRANDMA'S CHILDREN. 149 

" Sixty-one, sixty-one ; the bifurcation of 
the tendon of the superficial flexor muscle 
of the little finger," said the auntie. Where- 
at they all laughed. 

" There is one thing," said this same 
auntie : " when we went away to school, we 
passed into classes with young people three 
and four years older than we were." 

" These years," said grandma, " were the 
busiest of my life. I had my family of ten 
children to look after, and very often two 
or three of Eber's children, and sometimes 
one or two others/and my invalid father to 
see to. 

" I superintended the fitting out of the 
steamboats, and it was in this way I came 
to have a real interest in the business ; for 
uncle Sam and Eber both promised me 
that if I would superintend the work I 
might have the difference between what it 
cost them if I did it and what it would cost 
them if an upholsterer did the same. 

" The difference was estimated at about 
five thousand dollars for the larger boats, 
and less for the smaller ones. I was to 
have it in boat stock, and you can easily 



150 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

see that, with the large fleet of boats they 
possessed, it would have amounted to a 
large sum. 

" Besides, the boats paid very large per- 
centages on their capital stock. One year 
their net earnings were a thousand dollars 
a day for six months." 

Here the children burst out with a vari- 
ety of questions. " Did you get the stock ? " 
" What became of it ? " while grandma picked 
up a stitch in her knitting and calmly went 
on: — 

" But as I was saying, doing the work I 
did brought me in contact with all the poor 
of the village, who looked up to me as a 
kind of mother. If any of their children 
were sick, they would send for me first and 
the doctor afterwards; if they had family 
troubles of any kind, I was called to adjust 
them. 

" The truth is, Newport at that time was 
controlled almost entirely by uncle Sam 
and Eber, who in one way and another em- 
ployed nearly all the men and women in the 
place. There was n't a drop of whiskey 
sold there for many years, because uncle 



GRANDMA'S CHILDREN. 151 

Sam and Eber would not give any one em- 
ployment who drank, so you may be sure it 
was a prosperous town. In fact, since then 
many of the men they used to employ have 
become rich, some of them millionaires. 

" After a long illness, when Orville was 
eighteen months old, my father died ; but 
I had taken charge of everything for so 
many years that affairs went on just as they 
had done before. Still I missed his com- 
panionship and counsel. 

" Ever since my mother's death I had felt 
as if I must attend to his wants, so I think 
I had a different feeling for him than most 
daughters have for their parents." 

" How did he look, grandma ? " said Pa- 
melia. 

" Oh, he was a tall, slender, handsome 
man, with blue eyes and brown hair. He 
was a great reader, and during the last years 
of his life he cared for nothing so much as 
his garden and his books and politics. 

" I did n't bring up my children in the 
wishy-washy style that is considered fash- 
ionable," said grandma, with a slight ele- 
vation of her head, as if she was prepared 



152 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

for objections. " I dressed them plainly, I 
had them taught to work, and I would n't 
let them go gadding about, wasting their 
time." 

" No, indeed ! " said one of the aunties. 
"We got so we wouldn't ask to go out 
walking, for grandma would immediately 
say, ' Oh, ho ! you need exercise, do you ? 
Well, the onion bed needs weeding, and you 
can get a little fresh air weeding that ; ' or if 
the onion bed was all right, then it was the 
beet bed, or the carrot bed, or the strawber- 



ries." 



" Yes," said Orville, " or if it was a boy 
who asked, the woodpile had to be attended 
to, or the cabbages or potatoes hoed, or the 
horses must be looked after," 

" Or," said one of the older aunties, " there 
would be some room that needed cleaning, 
or cake to be baked, or some poor or sick 
body to be visited." 

Here everybody was roaring with laugh- 
ter, and grandma laughed till she cried. 

" Well," she said, " I was n't going to bring 
up a lot of lazy, worthless boys and girls 
that were n't worth their salt, and I did n't," 



GRANDMA'S CHILDREN. 153 

she said triumphantly. " Each one of them 
had his or her regular work to do besides 
their studies and their play, and you can't 
deny that you had plenty of play." 

" No ! " they all cried in chorus. 

" We lived right on the bank of the most 
beautiful river in the world, and in summer 
you had row-boats and sail-boats, and you 
went in bathing, and we had horses and a 
carriage ; in winter you went skating and 
sleigh-riding all that was good for you, and 
we had plenty of company." 

" I should say we did ! " remarked aunt 
Mollie ; and everybody laughed again, for 
aunt Mollie just doted on having com- 
pany — go away. 

" And I believe you were as happy a lot 
of children as ever grew up." 

" That is so," they all said, " and no chil- 
dren ever had a better mother they knew." 

" I did my best for you," said grandma, 
" but nobody is perfect. 

" But all of these times passed away," re- 
sumed grandma with a sigh ; " four of the 
children were married and gone, one had 
died after a lingering illness, one had gone 



154 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

with his father, and one was away at school, 
and the family was quite a small one for 
me, when one morning a poor, ragged, dirty 
little boy came to the house and wanted to 
see me. 

" When I said to him, ' My little man, 
what do you want ? ' he said, with an ap- 
pealing look in his big blue eyes, ' Aunt 
Emily, you take all good children ; I wish 
you 'd take me.' 

" The expression of his face and the tone 
of his voice won my heart immediately, but 
I did n't make up my mind really to adopt 
him for some time. I told him he might 
stay and work in the garden, if he wanted 
to ; but he was such a good boy, and Orville, 
who was near his age, grew so fond of him, 
that finally I took him as one of the family, 
educated him, and now he is a promising 
lawyer." 

" I know who it is ! " exclaimed Golden- 
Hair. " It 's uncle Theo." 

Grandma said, " Yes," and the children 
looked as if that was just what they thought, 
and grandma went on : " And now they 
are grown up, and all are married but aunt 



GRANDMA'S CHILDREN. 155 

Mollie ; and I will say that I have great 
reason to be proud of my children. 

" Life would be very lonely without them 
and the grandchildren," and she looked at 
their rosy faces with pride and affection ; 
" and no very own children could be better 
to their own mother than most of my chil- 
dren are to me." 




UNCLE EBER TELLS A STORY. 




UST as grandma concluded her 
story a latch-key clicked, the hall 
door opened, and in walked uncle 
Eber. 

His little son Eber and Portie were soon 
in his lap, and the children, each and all, 
crowded around him, and asked him to tell 
a story, — " that grandma had been telling 
a story about when she was a little girl, and 
would n't he tell a story about when he was 
a little boy." 

Uncle Ebers eyes twinkled merrily, for 
there was nothing he liked better than to be 
surrounded and overpowered by a host of 
little children ; but he said " he could n't at 
that moment think of anything that did 
happen to him when he was a little boy." 

" Well," said one of the aunties, " tell 
about how you lost your first vessel, and 
how you came near failing in business in 



UNCLE EBER TELLS A STORY. 157 

consequence. I used to like to hear you 
tell that story when I was a little girl." 

" That," said uncle Eber, " was a long 
time ago, when I was a young man and had 
just started in business for myself. I was 
part owner of the schooner Harrison, and 
the captain of her. Uncle Sam was the 
other owner, and it was the first of our part- 
nership. 

" The vessel was a beauty, and as I walked 
her decks I suppose I was as happy as a 
young man of twenty-five, with plenty of 
hope and a good business, could well be. 

" This trip we had a heavy freight for 
Mackinaw and Green Bay and Chicago, 
then a little town of about a thousand in- 
habitants. I owned most of the cargo, and 
expected to make a big profit on it. 

" We had a good trip ; the weather was 
fine, with good winds, until we got into 
Lake Michigan, when a heavy wind-storm 
came up that in twelve hours became a 
perfect gale. 

" We reefed and close-hauled the sails at 
first, and afterwards took down the main- 
sails, and went scudding along at a furious 



158 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

rate with almost bare poles. Up to this 
time I had not anticipated any disaster. I 
knew where we were, and with the wind in 
the quarter it was nothing could happen to 
us unless the rudder broke. 

" But when we were off Whitefish Point, 
suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, the 
wind veered to the east and blew harder 
than ever, and great black clouds poured 
down rain in torrents, and the thunder and 
lightning were fearful to witness. 

" The waves leaped and roared and tossed 
their white manes, and threw themselves 
upon our laboring ship as if they meant to 
destroy her. 

" Every stitch of canvas was lowered, and 
I myself held the helm ; but in half an hour 
after the fury of the storm burst upon us I 
could see that unless the wind changed we 
were lost ; that we were drifting helplessly 
on to the coast, and my precious boat would 
be battered to pieces, her cargo lost, and 
perhaps the crew also. 

" But there was nothing to do but get 
the small boats in readiness, keep her helm 
right, and wait for results. 



UNCLE EBER TELLS A STORY. 159 

" They were not long in coming. About 
midnight we could hear the surf booming 
on the beach, and two hours later, in spite 
of all our efforts, the ship struck ; and while 
the waves, one after another, were rolling 
over her, we launched the yawl boat, and 
the crew and I managed to get into it and 
clear the ship. 

" How we contrived to get ashore I could 
never tell. The boat was constantly full of 
water, and when it went down into the 
trough of a sea it seemed miraculous that 
it should ever rise again. But somehow 
or other the winds and the waves deposited 
us on the shore, and we found shelter in a 
fisherman's cabin. 

" The next morning the sun was shining 
brightly, and the wind had fallen ; and but 
for the turbulence of the waves, that could 
not be so quickly stilled, you would not 
have known that there had been a storm. 

" But there was my ship, what was left 
of her, beached, broken, a wreck, her cargo 
scattered to the four winds, and I a ruined 
man. 

" I went to Detroit to try to fix up mat- 



l6o GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

ters, but I had no money. Uncle Sam had 
lost so much he could n't advance any. I 
could n't borrow any, for my securities were 
all under the waters of Lake Michigan ; 
my notes would soon be due, and if I could 
n't meet them I was a doubly ruined man, 
for my credit would be gone. 

" I think I suffered more in those few 
weeks than I have over all the other busi- 
ness disasters I ever had. 

" One morning I got up, after a sleepless 
night, and thought I would go fishing. I 
always hated fishing, — thought it was the 
occupation of a lazy man ; but this morning 
I said to myself, If my hands are busy, per- 
haps I can think over my affairs better, and 
contrive some way to get out of my embar- 
rassments. 

" So I got some fishing tackle, and was 
walking down Jefferson Avenue, my head 
hanging, and in a very melancholy frame of 
mind, when a hand touched my shoulder and 
a friendly voice said, ' What in the world is 
the matter with you, Eber ? I have shouted 
your name three times, and you have n't 
heard. Come back to my hotel ; I 've got 



UNCLE EBER TELLS A STORY. l6l 

something for you from Emily and your 
father.' 

" My heart leaped at the friendly voice 
and words, and I went back with him. 
When we got to his room, he closed and 
locked the door, opened his valise, and took 
out a big package and gave me — what do 
you think ? " 

The children could n't think, though they 
tried hard. 

" He gave me fifteen hundred dollars that 
Emily and father had made, though Emily 
sent the most of it. 

" They had sent it to me, for they had 
heard of the loss of the ship and cargo, and 
thought I might be in need of money. 

" I am not ashamed to say that, when I 
got that money, tears that I could not con- 
trol rolled down my cheeks, — tears of joy 
at the unexpected relief, and because my 
heart was so full of love and gratitude to 
the dear ones who had given it." 

Here grandma furtively wiped her eyes. 

11 Small as you may think the sum was, it 
paid my debts and upheld my credit. 

" I was not afraid of losses if I could 



1 62 GRANDMOTHER'S STORIES. 

only keep my credit good. But for Emily I 
never should have had that fifteen hundred 
dollars, and what I could have done without 
it I have never liked to think about. 

" Come," said uncle Eber to his little son, 
" mamma is expecting us by this time." 

And so across the street they went to 
the " other house," while Golden-Hair said, 
" Grandma, were you that Emily ? " and 
grandma said, " Yes." 



■MHM 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



029 785 211 5 



